


Inside Man

by MrProphet



Series: SEG [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 21:59:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 50,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10795575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet
Summary: So, I worked out a lot of background on this...http://www.prophet.phlegethon.org/Fiction/SEG/frame-index.htmSadly, this ended up the only completed story in the SEG series.





	Inside Man

_The Stargate Facility,  
Langara_

Dr Kianna Cyr walked through the corridors of the former palace of Thanos, a stack of files in her arms. If she seemed distracted there were plenty of reasons why she might be. As Assistant Director of the Langaran Stargate Expeditionary Group, she had been run ragged for the last six months, trying to get a Stargate programme up and running in the face of considerable obstacles. Aside from the logistical difficulties involved in adapting an ancient palace for use as a modern facility, she had to soothe the tensions between the Group's scientists and their military counterparts. Facilities, funding allocations, dormitory space; if it was there, the researchers would argue with the engineers over it, the engineers would squabble with the security detachment and the security detachment would fight tooth and nail with the expeditionary teams, who were themselves growing impatient with the shortage of expeditionary work for them to undertake.

Then there was the continual interference from the planet's three superpowers. In theory, the SEG was under the direct and sole jurisdiction of the Joint Ruling Council and the island of Amamos was unclaimed territory, but in practice the Andari Federation, the Terranian Tetrarchy and Kianna's own people, the Kelownan Parliamentary Democracy, all wanted to flex their muscles and assert control over the project. The Andari said that Amamos was closest to their territorial waters, the Terranians maintained that their selectively bred and highly trained scientific and military élite were the best qualified to undertake the work of the project and the Kelownans refused to let the fact that the Stargate had been found on their land be forgotten.

Kianna had to deal with these problems, while struggling to avoid accusations of betrayal from the Kelownans and her fellow scientists when she tried to take the middle road. It was hard work and that was perhaps why, as Kianna rounded a corner, her mind on the dozen things she had to do before she could even afford to stop for a cup of tea, she did not see a man walking the other way. He was as distracted as she and he did not see her. They struck one another hard and each recoiled, falling to the floor in a flurry of papers.

The two of them struggled up and groped around for their own files. It was only when Kianna picked up one of the man's folders and passed it to him that she noticed who it was she had collided with.

"Gereth!"

Their eyes met for a moment, before Dr Gereth Stele looked away. "Dr Cyr," he muttered, accepting the file and passing one of Kianna's in return.

"How are you?" Kianna asked.

"Fine," he replied. "Busy." There was a pause. "You?"

Kianna forced a smile. "Much the same. I know this whole place is buzzing like a beehive, but sometimes it feels like I must be doing all the work myself."

Gereth's face was stony. "Well, we're all working hard."

"I... I know that." Kianna flinched a little at his coldness. "It was just a joke. Not a very good one, but... "

"I have things to do," Gereth interrupted. "I'm sure you do too." His lips tightened into a thin line, but he gave no other sign of emotion as he said: "The Director is expecting you."

Kianna closed her eyes to try and hold in the hurt. "Gereth... " she began, but when she opened her eyes, he was already moving quickly away along the corridor.

She watched him go, wondering what that tension in the line of his mouth meant. Was it anger that she saw there? Pain? Jealousy, perhaps? Kianna shook her head; she did not even know what she _wanted_ it to have been. Did she want him to be jealous of the director? That might mean that he still cared. Part of her might even want him to be hurting still; to hurt in the way that no-one seemed to realise that she was hurt.

"Artume!" she muttered, sharply. She lifted a hand to her temple as her blasphemy triggered a flash of memory. Once, Artume had simply been a name to her, the goddess of the hunt and of the night who, in legend, thwarted the foul Voltumna; now, she remembered that goddess as a person, or at least a Goa'uld. She could close her eyes and see the powerful figure, proud and alert.

With a sigh, Kianna banished such thoughts and continued on her way through the corridors to the majestic door of the throne room. Instead of passing through this great portal, however, she turned to the right, where the door to the steward's chambers lurked in the shadow of a pillar. A guard stood to either side of the door, their bodies looking ludicrously over-sized in their bulky flak jackets. They were Kelownans by the insignia on their sleeves, but the automatic carbines that they carried were Andari C-45s and their most prominent badge was that of the Stargate Facility Security Garrison.

A brass plaque had been fixed to the door with two screws.

**` Mr Jonas Quinn - Director` **

Kianna opened the door and went through to the office behind it.

If few people at the SEG worked harder than Kianna Cyr, then Jonas Quinn was one of them. The Stargate Expeditionary Group was his creation; he had pitched the idea of using the Stargate to the Joint Ruling Council, and pressed for the placement of the facility on neutral territory. He had produced the first drafts of the Group's charter and mission statements – based in large part on his experiences with the SGC on Earth – and, having been appointed as the Director of the SEG, he had been ultimately responsible for selecting the Group's personnel. It was Jonas who had suggested – no, demanded – that Kianna be given a senior role in the SEG's scientific team. It was also Jonas who had located and appointed Gereth Stele as Chief Medical Officer; a kind act, Kianna believed, but a misguided one.

Jonas saw the SEG as Langara's best chance for lasting peace, progress and a place in the wider universe. He had thrown himself into its creation and every time the governments of Langara threw an obstacle in his path it was like a physical blow to him. He strove constantly to overcome these difficulties and move forward, but it took a terrible toll on his strength.

Kianna exchanged a friendly greeting with Jonas's secretary, Miss Arden, and knocked on the inner door. She went through at a call from within, but Jonas did not look up until almost a minute after Kianna's entrance and he seemed surprised to see her there. "Kianna?" he asked. "I didn't hear you."

"You heard me knock?"

Jonas shook his head, not in disaffirmation but as though to clear a fog. "Of course," he agreed. "Sorry. I'm a little tired." It was hard to tell with the light streaming through the great bay window at his back, but he looked even more tired than usual.

Kianna tried to act casual. "Aren't we all?"

"I have another progress review with General Blitze and Mr Haht coming up, so I have been burning the midnight oil a little."

"Our illustrious oversight committee do seem to add considerably to our paperwork," Kianna agreed. "But Dr Stele said that you were expecting me."

Jonas rubbed his forehead. "I... That's right; you said you needed to speak to me about something."

"The Andari Intelligence Service has flagged another dozen of our personnel as potential spies or anti-Federal terrorists; four Terranians, three Kelownans, four Andari from the outer provinces with supposed secessionist agendas and one independent." She handed over the top file from her stack.

Jonas read the file's title. "Lab equipment requisition?"

Kianna blushed. She searched through her disordered pile for the correct folder and exchanged it for the budget requisition. "Sorry. I ran into Ger... Dr Stele outside, literally."

This time, Jonas skimmed through the entire folder before replying; Kianna knew that at that pace he had time to absorb all of the information contained within.

"I'll have Mr Lenaux re-run the security checks," Jonas promised. "That should satisfy Andari Intelligence."

"I hope so, because we can't afford to lose these people."

"We can't afford to lose anyone," Jonas replied. "This is one reason why I wanted the Group outside of national control in the first place. What I want to know is how our security screenings haven't picked up these alleged connections and agendas if the national governments have granted the JRC full access to their intelligence files?"

"Overriding national interest," Kianna replied. "Clause 114d, subsection 3, paragraph 1: 'Any nation of Langara may withhold from the Joint Ruling Council such information that they deem to be of overriding national interest and which if revealed could compromise the dignity or position of the nation or of any other nation in the global political situation.' Tages, but I'm tired of hearing that quoted at me," she sighed.

"Imagine how bad it must be for Kaise," Jonas suggested. "He deals with this sort of thing all day long."

"So do I," she assured him. "So do we all. Even if it isn't our job, we all get inundated with this khar!"

Jonas raised an eyebrow in shock. "Language," he chuckled.

Kianna blushed. "Excuse my Andari," she said, "although I suppose we aren't supposed to say that anymore, either. Not now we're all one great, global nation."

"Oo; good sarcasm," Jonas commended. His smile was brief, but it was good to see. Once, he had smiled every day, every time he found something new to learn or experience; he had not smiled very often since moving into this office. Kianna wondered if it was the pressure that made him dour, or the betrayal he had suffered at her hand, although not of her will.

"You look dreadful," she told him.

"Have I mentioned lately how much your confidence in me means?"

Kianna smiled, but pressed on. "I mean it, Jonas. I hope that we're friends and, as a friend, I think you should know that you look like death."

"We're all tired," he reminded her.

"You're working too hard," she pressed. "You need to take a break. Chief Lenaux and I can look after things for a while; why not take a few days away to clear your head. You could spend some time in the Macian Hills, or even visit the Gloran Forest, now that the Andari border is open."

"Kianna... "

"Or visit Earth," she suggested. "I know you miss people at the SGC and if you feel you _have_ to work you could pick their brains over protocol and see if you can't change their minds about that iris shield. Or maybe go home and... " She broke off, realising what she had said. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Jonas sat very still and quiet. "I don't have a home," he said at last. "All I have is this and I won't rest... I can't rest until I have built something here for the good of the whole world. Always assuming the whole world will let me. Was there anything else?"

Kianna shook her head. "Some budget requests, but those are for Miss Isato. Take care of yourself, Jonas."

"I have to," he replied. "Who else is there to do it?"

 

From the Director's office, Kianna headed back towards the labs, pausing only to drop her requisition forms through Miss Isato's in-slot. Her team were experiencing difficulties there in adapting the Langaran equipment to run from the Goa'uld power supply and Kianna was uniquely qualified to solve those problems. Halfway to the storerooms that had been converted into laboratory space, however, Kianna turned and struck out towards the administration section again.

This time she turned right before reaching Jonas' door and continued on through half-a-dozen security checkpoints, showing her ID each time, although all of the guards knew perfectly well who she was. At last, a short flight of stairs took her into what had once been a minstrel's gallery overlooking an antechamber to the throne room. Now it was packed with computers and the gallery window had been fitted with sliding steel shutters.

Kianna strode to the window and looked down into the antechamber. It was a grand reception area and the minstrel's galleries on the other three sides provided perfect positions for covering fire. It had been judged the optimum place in which to store Langara's greatest treasure. The Stargate.

"Activate the Stargate," Kianna ordered, displaying her ID as she spoke.

"There is no scheduled contact, Assistant Director... " one of the technicians began.

"I know that," she assured the man. "Nevertheless, connect the grid and bring the Gate online. Stand by with the main transmitters and dial address 1."

"Yes, Dr Cyr," the man agreed. His hands flew across his console and the Gate hummed into life. Once the power was running from the main palace grid, the technician was able to dial the first address in the Langaran Stargate Directory; the address of Earth.

*

_The Colony_

Trooper Rebus Badon was increasingly certain that someone had something against him. In fact, he _knew_ that several people in the Kelownan military hierarchy hated his guts and most of his other parts, but now he was starting to believe that one particularly sadistic individual had taken it as a personal insult that he had not been discharged from the military altogether. It seemed unfair that anyone should hate him so much; it was not as though the court martial had charged Rebus with any offence that would merit dismissal. Then again, maybe that was the point. After all, he had committed any number of dismissible offences; he had simply never been caught. Perhaps that was why, in addition to being demoted from Leading Trooper, he was serving out his sentence as a supply clerk in the Colony; the farming and industrial community established on Amamos to supply the Stargate Facility. But when a man was convicted of minor black market charges, but escaped prosecution for several more serious acts of illicit supply redistribution, and then found himself given custody of a massive, multinational logistical storehouse, he had to suspect that somebody was willing him to screw up again.

Rebus had made a promise to himself when he had been sentenced: to never get caught again. If he was being watched then he would just have to keep his nose clean until the watchers were convinced that he had turned over a new leaf; it was irritating, but there it was. The only trouble was that he had forgotten how excruciatingly boring it was to work in the supply corps without the excitement of a few illegal activities.

Today, Rebus stood on a rocky beach, watching as a group of men and women worked on the sonar posts which would protect the sandy shores along the coast from clandestine landings without making them unusable for recreation. It was a good plan and it would have been criminal to let such beautiful beaches go to waste on tank traps and razor wire, but the sonar posts were sophisticated devices and the team required regular shipments of electronic parts. It was Rebus' job to oversee these deliveries and that meant dealing with the engineering team's supply clerk, Corporal-at-Arms Rezna, a walking example of the crushing boredom of logistics.

"Seventeen cases of diode packs; fifty diodes to the pack," Rezna intoned.

For a horrid moment, Rebus was sure that he would insist on counting the diodes in every pack; not to make sure that none had been stolen but simply because that was Rezna's idea of a fun afternoon.

"And five soldering stations," Rezna finished, ticking off the last item on his checklist.

"Damned if I know what you do with all this stuff," Rebus admitted. "I went over the supply manuals the other day and we've brought down enough components for at least fifteen sonar posts."

"Well, we're building seven on this stretch," Rezna replied, "but we have to build them in place and we're having some trouble with salt corrosion."

"Let me guess; they thoroughly tested the design's waterproofing in _fresh_ water?"

Rezna shrugged. "Dr Kha says that they have everything sorted out now, so this should be the last delivery." He sounded as though he had just announced the impending demise of, if not a parent or child, then a favourite cousin.

"Where is Dr Kha today?" Rebus asked as casually as he could which, after almost ten years in the black market, was very casually indeed. "I just need her to sign a few forms – explaining about the salt corrosion."

Rezna nodded his understanding. "Sonar station three, and good luck. I've been telling her she needs to file an official report for days, but she's always 'too busy'."

"Aren't we all?"

"Is there any such thing?" Rezna shot back.

"Probably not for you," Rebus agreed. He saluted smartly, before Rezna had time to wonder if he might be being insulted, and headed out along the jetty towards sonar station three. The sonar station was a steel drum, and would have been just large enough to contain two people if it had not been packed with electrical components. Even at low tide the base of the station had to be submerged and they were mounted on scaffolds so that they could be lifted clear of the sea, in order that maintenance engineers could open the casing without flooding the delicate components.

Dr Kha had lifted station three and had her head and upper body right inside the casing. Nonetheless, she clearly heard Rebus approach because she called out as he drew near: "Pass me the negative three gauge socket wrench, please."

Rebus obliged, digging the heavy tool from her kit and pressing it into her outstretched hand. It looked almost comically oversized in her oil-stained grasp, but she held it with a confidence that was unusual from her.

The wrench disappeared inside the casing and a series of loud clangs emerged. After a moment she passed the wrench back to Rebus. "Thanks."

"My pleasure."

After a short pause, the shoulders and head withdrew from the casing and the scientist turned to face him. Engineer Élite Dr Eudora Kha was considerably smaller and lighter than Rebus, who was himself no giant. Generations of selective breeding had gifted her with slim, strong, clever hands and a first class mind, while happy chance had given her auburn hair, sharp green eyes and a pleasant smile, when she felt confident enough to use it. Five weeks of working on the coastal defences in the fresh air and sunshine had turned her cloistered pallor first to a painful red and then to a healthy tan.

She wore a set of grubby overalls and her curls had been dragged back from her face and tucked under a work cap. Her freckles were mostly hidden under a layer of grime. A tool belt hung around her waist, she had a pencil behind her right ear and a screwdriver behind her left. She looked about as glamorous as a monkey wrench, although she would have had most of the male engineers of Rebus' acquaintance panting on their knees. Not that there were many women who _couldn't_ have reduced the male engineers of Rebus' acquaintance to panting fools; he knew very few male engineers and most of those were not, he felt, paragons of the genus.

"Trooper Badon," Kha said. She sounded surprised and awkward, as though she had been caught doing something that she should not have been doing, and despite the fact that she was the sonar Project Supervisor and thus ranked equal to a Captain under the SEG's Joint Command Structure, she cast her eyes downwards to avoid his gaze.

"I'm flattered, Dr Kha," Rebus told her.

"You are? Why?"

"You remembered my name."

Kha shrugged. "I don't speak to many people."

"I noticed that."

"Is there something I can help you with? Only there is still an awful lot to do and I shouldn't leave the casing open for long. It's the salt in the air, you see," she explained.

"Ah, no," Rebus admitted. "That is, at some point I need you to fill in a form to explain why you've needed so many components, but actually there was something I thought I could do for you."

"There is?" Kha looked nervous.

Rebus coughed awkwardly. He had only spoken to Dr Kha a few times, but he had always seen this nervousness. He was aware that, as a member of the Terranian Scientific Élite, she would have been raised in the élite cloisters among an all-female order. Naturally she found the company of men to be confusing and intimidating, even such an unassuming individual as Rebus Badon. This made it difficult enough to broach the matter in hand, never mind that by doing so he would be breaking his parole and the promise he had made himself.

"I know you don't know many people here and you always look a little lost," Rebus began.

"I have my work," she assured him.

"Sure, but all that 'service is its own reward' stuff is just old religious talk and... "

Kha coughed politely. "Your people may have embraced rationalism wholeheartedly, but mine is a more spiritual nation."

"No offence," he assured her. "Anyway, I'm a Drusarus; we're pretty big with the faith. I just thought you might like... Well, there was this box of spoiled goods up at the old palace and they wrote it off. A friend of mine was in charge of the disposal and he... collected up the stuff that was still good."

"He stole it!" Kha gasped.

"It isn't stealing," Rebus assured her. "When they write a shipment off like that they can't keep any of it and so the supply crew get to divvy it up. There's nothing illegal about it." _Providing you don't write off perfectly good stock and sell it on_ , he thought to himself. "So my friend and his mates split this shipment and some of it found its way to me. I just thought it might pick you up a little." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a foil-wrapped packet. "A taste of home."

Kha's eyes widened at the sight of the bright label. "We never had much chocolate in the convent," she admitted.

"Well, there isn't much of it to be had anywhere at the moment," Rebus noted. "That's why my friend didn't want this to go to waste." He proffered the packet.

"How much?" Kha asked warily.

"Nothing," Rebus assured her. "It's a gift. That's why it's legal," he added. "I didn't pay anything for it and I won't charge you."

Slowly, Kha put out her hand and took the bar of Terranian chocolate. Rebus felt a pang shoot through him as half a week's wages left his hand, but then Kha gave a broad, genuine smile and it all seemed worthwhile.

"Thank you, Trooper... What's your given name?"

"Rebus," he replied.

"Eudora, but please don't call me that. Thank you, Rebus."

"No problem. You looked like you needed a friend."

"And now I have one. I think that may be a first," she added wistfully.

Rebus frowned. "You didn't have friends in the convent?"

"It's very competitive in the élite. There were a few of us who worked together, but mostly it's every woman for herself. I had a cat."

"Well, I don't think we have any of those on Amamos, but if there's anything else you need, just let me know." Rebus took out his notepad and scribbled down his base extension. "Everything's still in short supply after the invasion, but I can keep an ear to the ground and see what turns up."

"Again, thank you."

Rebus was feeling good about himself as he walked back to his van. From the first time he had seen her, Dr Kha had reminded him of his niece, Alanna. He had always enjoyed buying presents for Lannie, but since his conviction his sister had refused to let him visit. In some ways he supposed that he was using Eudora – she was right, that name needed something doing with it – as a substitute, but he still felt good about helping her.

"Money well spent," he decided.

*

_The Stargate Facility_

Kaise Lenaux was a big man, like Jack O'Neill had been a big man; perhaps that was why Jonas trusted him so instinctively. Certainly, the physical and ideological similarity was one of the reasons why Jonas had chosen Lenaux to be his head of security. Another was that there was not a single member of the JRC who would have approved the selection; Jonas had come to like people who had no political approval. He had first met Lenaux through a similarly-minded friend in Representative Tarthus' retinue and took to him at once. Lenaux was an Andari war hero, decorated for prominent actions against both Kelownan and Terranian forces during his time with the Ninth Andari Artillery Regiment, but had then received an honourable discharge in murky circumstances, putting him out of favour with his own people. His courage was unquestioned and from what Jonas could learn he had been dismissed over a matter of conscience. He had pushed even harder for Lenaux's appointment than he had for Kianna's.

Lenaux's rank at the time of his discharge was Senior Commander – roughly the equivalent of a USAF Major – but he was not permitted to use that. His official title was Assistant Director (Security) – in parallel to Kianna Cyr's office as Assistant Director (Technical) – but nobody called him that either. He was, to everyone, the Chief.

Lenaux cast his eyes over the report from the Andari Intelligence Service and sighed. "I'll see if they'll give me sources on these," he promised, "but it's probably another time waste. Tell you what, I'll put one of my junior clerical assistants on it, just to wind them up a little."

Jonas chuckled. "You're a bad man, Chief."

Lenaux did not laugh.

"That's not a good sign."

"We have a problem," Lenaux admitted.

"Do we have anything else?"

"The canteen is now fully operational."

"You have no idea how happy that makes me. Alright; what's this new problem?"

Lenaux drummed his fingers pensively on the desk. "Another security breach," he announced. " _Someone_ has been accessing the files that were sent by the SGC; specifically, the address logs and summary reports."

Jonas frowned. "How secure were those files?"

"They were stored on the internal server and protected by high-level encryption and access restrictions. Without specific authorisation – and there was no authorisation code on the access – they can only be decrypted with directorial clearance."

"So you and I," Jonas noted. "Kianna, Dr Tai or Lance-Colonel Aaen."

"Or Dr Stele," Lenaux added. "The CMO has directorial clearance."

"He does?"

"He has to; he needs full access to all personnel files."

"Why does he need directorial clearance for medical files?"

"The files for the Terranian élite include a genealogical history," Lenaux explained. "Apparently the élite bloodlines are a state secret."

Jonas nodded his understanding. "So; six suspects. Since you're telling me, I guess you didn't do and for the same reason I presume you don't think I did it."

"Well I know I didn't and your access codes would have showed up as an authorised access and barely registered on the security monitors. That leaves Dr Cyr... "

"I don't believe it was her," Jonas said. "Kianna isn't political enough."

"Even if we accept that," Lenaux replied, tactfully not accusing Jonas of allowing personal feelings to cloud his judgement, "we're left with our Chief Medical, Scientific and Expeditionary Officers as suspects. Whichever of them it might have been, it's going to be a kick in the teeth for our... well, certainly for _my_ credibility and a major setback to the programme. If nothing else, we can't get the Expeditionary Force off the ground while the head of Unit 1 is under suspicion."

"What do you recommend?" Jonas asked.

"We keep it to ourselves for now," Kaise said. "I've got some of my data analysts working on it, but even our best people are pretty new to electronic computers. I might enlist the aid of Miss Isato, with your permission."

"You trust her?"

"She's Isteri, which more or less guarantees non-political, and she has an honest face," Kaise replied. "She's also good with computers, has an eye for detail and is as highly placed as anyone in the Group who doesn't have the necessary access to be a suspect, if that makes sense."

"I think so." Jonas nodded. "Use your discretion, Kaise, and let me know what you find."

"Yes, sir."

Jonas gave a wry grin. "'Sir,'" he laughed. "I'll never get used to that."

*

Dr Gereth Stele sat in the SEG infirmary and worried. He had made an effort since his arrival to avoid the Assistant Director (Technical) as much as possible and he had been shaken to find himself forced to confront her. He supposed that, eventually, he would have to perform a medical examination on his former fiancé, but so far he had managed to delegate.

"Dr Stele?"

Gereth looked up. Draius Nute, the Andari who had been appointed his chief of nursing staff, stood over his desk. "More difficulties, Nute?" he asked, wearily.

"Actually, no," Nute replied; for perhaps the first time since Gereth had met him, the man was smiling. "The technicians have finished with the converters and most of the medical equipment is now up and running. We're going to start a few test runs with the scanners we received from the SGC; they should give us significantly better resolution than our own machines, but we need a little hands-on experience."

Gereth nodded. "Good news at last," he sighed. "Alright; draft some of the garrison and we'll take some practice images to compare with what we can get from our old machines."

"Yes, Doctor," Nute agreed. "There is one other thing," he added.

"Good or bad?" Gereth asked.

"I'd say good. Lance-Colonel Aaen wants to see you."

Gereth sighed.

Nute sucked a breath in through his teeth. "Oh dear."

"Mr Nute?" Gereth asked, pointedly.

"Just thinking," Nute replied.

"Thinking what?"

"That when a man looks like that when someone tells him Leleth Aaen wants to see him, he must have a pretty bad case of something. Or someone."

Gereth shook his head. "Just _don't_ go there," he said firmly.

"Understood. I'll send the L-Col in; maybe that'll cheer you up a little."

Gereth gave a noncommittal grunt; he was not convinced. In his experience, a man suffering from the complications of love could not easily be cheered by the presence of _another_ woman, even one with Leleth Aaen's undoubted charms. Despite his reservations, however, he did sit up a little straighter and make a barely-conscious effort to tidy his hair and jacket. Love was one thing, but a man could only do so much to deny his nature.

Lance-Colonel Aaen strode into the room with an aristocratic gait that was popularly known as 'Number 3'. Number 2 was the efficient soldier's gait that made full use of the length of her legs to carry her at great speed along the corridors of the SGF and Number 1 was a predatory prowl that she reserved for special occasions in the officers' bar.

Aaen was a tall woman, an inch under six feet, with a rangy, athletic build. It was likely that no-one ever had or would call her beautiful, but she had a handsome face, with large, almost black eyes, skin like chocolate and long, black hair, which she wore in a tight braid that twitched teasingly from side to side across her back as she walked. She had long, powerful legs that haunted the dreams of many in the Group. She was strong, and her strength was more than physical; she wore her charisma like a cloak and it made her seem even taller than she was.

There could be little doubt that Leleth knew the effect that she had on men but, so far as Gereth could tell, she made no effort either to exaggerate or to diminish that effect. She was neither a temptress nor a mouse, she just _was_ , and Gereth respected that. If he had met her before Kianna... but that was wild, and rather optimistic, speculation.

"What can I do for you, Lance-Colonel," Gereth asked.

Aaen put her hands on the back of the chair which stood across the desk from Gereth and leaned forward. Her expression was serious. "I'm worried about the programme, Dr Stele," she admitted.

Gereth sighed. This was a familiar turn of discussion. "Please sit down, Lance-Colonel," he said.

She waved her hand airily as she sat. "Call me Leleth," she insisted. "Lance-Colonel is such a cursed mouthful."

"What's worrying you, Leleth?"

"The Director," she replied. "Is it only my imagination, Gereth" – a woman like Leleth Aaen rarely had to ask permission to use a man's first name – "or is Mr Quinn becoming somewhat spun down?"

Gereth shrugged. "Everyone's working long hours," he hedged. "I couldn't venture a medical opinion without an examination and if I examined him, I wouldn't be able to discuss the results with anyone else."

"I'm not asking for specifics, Gereth; just testing the waters. Fact is, I think Mr Quinn needs a break and, if he won't take one, I think he needs to be compelled. Only people who can do that are the ADs and you, and neither AD would listen to me because one won't hear wrong of him and the other can't think right of me."

"Why is that?" Gereth asked, speaking more sharply than he had intended in an attempt to drive the conversation away from Kianna's loyalty to Jonas Quinn. That would have raised too many questions that Gereth was unprepared to hear answered.

Leleth shrugged with forced nonchalance. Her eyes flickered dangerously and Gereth suspected that she knew enough of his troubles that she could have put the boot in if she had been so inclined. Instead she shrugged again and the movement was loose and more natural now. "Old business," she replied, dismissively. "It isn't important. What worries me is that our Senior Command Officer is losing balance when we're just about ready to start our expeditionary program."

"So, you fancy yourself as the ultimate authority on expeditionary matters?" Gereth asked.

This time, the dangerous flash was closer to the surface and it was prudence rather than sympathy that still her tongue. "No," she replied tersely. "I do not. I want to go through the Gate at the head of EF-1; that won't happen if they decide that they need me to make up the numbers on the directorial council. If Quinn is incapacitated, the Kelownans will insist on Cyr as acting Director and my government will push hard for me to take her place and I _don't_ want that." She was growing angry now and she paused for a long moment to muster her reserves of self-control.

"Look. You know as well as I do that half the JRC think this whole programme is a dumb idea and _all_ the home politicos think it should be in their control. Our first mission is going to be a test case and it has to be _flawless_. If anyone screws up, and especially the Director, _everything_ we've worked for here will go down the toilet. Quinn _has_ to be on the ball when we kick off and it does have to be him. If that means he takes medical leave until the hour before my team make their first walk up that ramp, then so be it. You _must_ force him to take leave."

"That is a medical matter," Gereth replied, flatly. "I have noted your concerns and, if a time should arise when I believe that Mr Quinn can not perform his duties, I assure you that I shall oblige him to take a leave of rest. In the meantime, Lance-Colonel, I must respectfully suggest that you attend to your area of expertise and leave me to attend to mine."

Leleth drew herself up with a fierce hiss and Gereth flinched from the anger in her gaze. He had known women who took poorly to being crossed, but this was a level of rage that he had not seen before.

"Don't you understand how important this is!" she demanded furiously. "Your stupid national pride... "

At that Gereth started up from his own chair. "This is _not_ a matter of national pride, but of professional judgement!" he snapped. "I agree with you that Mr Quinn is tired, but he is not yet incapable. Until such time I will not order medical leave on the say so of a soldier any more than you would advance or retreat on the tactical analysis of a surgeon. Now, if you have nothing else to say then I am sure that there are things for you to be doing. As you say, there is a great deal to be done to make ready for the SEG to go into operation."

For a moment, Gereth was sure that Leleth Aaen was going to strike him, but instead she drew herself up and adopted her most regal and dignified pose. "Then I shall bid you good day, Dr Stele," she hissed. "And on your head be the consequences of your pride."

She stalked out with such arrogance that Gereth felt it might qualify as gait Number 4. Once she was gone he slumped back into his chair, quite exhausted. His first impulse was to seek out Kianna, but that of course was impossible.

"We'll never make it past the first mission," he groaned.

*

_Stargate Command,  
Earth_

"What's new, pussycat?" Amy Kawalsky asked.

Louise Stillwell looked up from her books, a strand of black hair escaping from its restraining scarf and flopping comically over her face. "Ugh," she replied eloquently.

Amy laughed and flung herself onto a stool by Louise's side, catching the edge of the table to halt her movement. There was little to choose between them in years, but Amy looked older, in part because a thousand and some years of another's experiences looked out from behind her brown eyes. Louise, with her round face and sparkling baby blues, looked younger than her years, although less so than she had once done; life at the SGC had taken its toll on her innocence.

"Whatcha doing?" Kawalsky asked.

"Translation," Louise replied. "That damn text from 418."

"No breaks?"

"It looks like Mayan, but it isn't. It isn't anything Mesoamerican, or even anything nearby, so far as I can tell." She sighed. "Maybe there's something here, but I can't spot it; I don't have Jonas's eye for patterns and permutations."

"Who does?" Amy asked, rhetorically. "So why don't you ask him while you're on Langara?"

"I guess I – wait; what?"

Amy grinned and pulled an envelope from her pocket. "Go home and pack a suitcase," she said. "You're booked on a fast wormhole to Langara and the General wants to see you at eighteen-hundred."

Louise's eyes bulged and her mouth hung open.

"And don't gawp at him like that," Amy warned. "If you sit there making frog faces at him he'll slap you in quarantine."

 

Louise had only spoken to General O'Neill a handful of times and he had always intimidated her a little. She had made it onto the field register, but she was simply not important enough to sit in on command briefings except on the rare occasion that a mission called for expertise in Mesoamerican archaeology. She was just a research assistant and doctoral student at the SGC, but when it came to the Mayan language she was It. It was a good feeling to be so valued, but daunting at times; almost as daunting as speaking to Colonel O'Neill.

"I'm sure _you_ know why we like Langara," O'Neill said. He sat behind his desk, looking... big.

Amy had implied to Louise that she was travelling as a private individual and so she had changed into casual clothes. Now she wished that she had kept her SGC fatigues on, at least until she was on Langara. In jeans and sneakers, a black blouse and red poncho, she felt even more out of place in the General's office than usual.

"I, um... They are still the only source of naquadria and, ah... "

"Cut the crap, Miss Stillwell," O'Neill scoffed. "We like Langara because of Jonas Quinn."

"Oh."

"If he wasn't in charge of this Stargate Expeditionary Group, we never would have sent them a Christmas card, let alone our address database."

"I see."

"We've had a couple of worrying reports from Langara lately," O'Neill went on. "Jonas sends us regular updates and he seems to be having some security concerns. Then we received a signal from Kianna Cyr."

With an effort, Louise kept her expression neutral, but her lips pressed tightly together and she could feel her left eyelid pulsing nervously. "And what does Dr Cyr have to say?" she asked darkly.

General O'Neill raised an eyebrow quizzically, but made no comment. "Dr Cyr says that she is worried about Jonas himself. She thinks he's working too hard and I suppose that these security concerns must be a part of that. Officially, you're visiting as part of a goodwill exchange, but off the record I'd like you to see if there's anything you can do to help out."

Louise blushed. "Well... I'm not much good with security," she admitted.

O'Neill gave a soft chuckle, his grim features breaking up with good humour. "This I know, but that's why we're sending Senior Airman MacVeigh to look at their computer problems. I'm sending you more as an expert on Jonas Quinn."

The blushed deepened. "I'm not... I mean, I thought I might be, but... "

O'Neill raised his hand. "You and he got on well enough and he'll talk to you, I hope. You can liaise with Dr Cyr and... " He broke off as Louise's eyes darkened. "Ah."

"I'll do my best," Louise promised, forcing her temper down, as it was not directed at anyone present. "And it will be good to see him, in any event."

O'Neill nodded, apparently satisfied. "Then get a good night's sleep in the VIP quarters; you ship out at oh-seven-hundred."

*

_The Colony_

As the sun set, Kha pulled off her cap and replaced it with a headband with a lamp mounted at the front. She tucked the cap into the pocket of her overalls and touched the bar of chocolate. Moving with exaggerated care, despite the fact that no-one was around and she had her head inside a steel can, she fetched out the bar, unwrapped one corner and broke off a square. She paused for a moment and then popped the square into her mouth, letting it lie on her tongue until it began to melt. She gave a shudder as the half-forgotten, bittersweet flavour washed over her taste buds, touched with just a hint of orange.

"Oh, Turan that's good," she sighed, feeling quite justified for once in invoking the goddess of sensual pleasure.

At last she swallowed the chocolate, ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth in search of every last trace, and then closed the break in the wrapping and pushed the bar back into her pocket. With just a hint of regret, she reached up to switch on her torch and put a hand out for her soldering iron.

In the dark, her hand brushed the handle of the iron and it fell with a clatter and a soft splash into the water beneath her. Kha turned and looked down at the dark, surging water and sighed. "Oh... pootle," she muttered. "No doubt Corporal Rezna will want me to fill in another form for that one. So much for my chances of finishing this post tonight."

Without a soldering iron there was little more that she could do and so Kha grasped the top of the casing and prepared to step backwards onto the scaffold. Just as she was about to emerge, however, she heard a voice. Instinctively – in the convent, members of the élite were not permitted to remain in the workshop after dark and old habits were hard to shake – she pressed herself into the casing of the sonar post. She reached for the hatch, but then withdrew her arm. The salt water had rusted the hinges; trying to move the hatch would alert anyone within a mile of the beach.

"I'm telling you I heard something," a man's voice declared.

"Why would anybody be here this late?" a woman replied.

"The Project Leader is an élite; who knows how long she stays at work?"

Kha stifled a whimper as a beam of light flashed across the scaffold and wished she had tried to close the hatch after all.

" _Someone_ 's working on that one!" the man declared.

The light flashed across the hatch and Kha pushed herself as far back into the casing as she could.

"Sloppy procedure more like it. Anyway, it doesn't matter; the damned thing's high and dry, so that's our work done for us."

The man grunted in agreement. "Come on; let's deal with number four."

Kha squeezed her eyes shut and tried to control her breathing and heartbeat. The intruders were gone. She could just wait until they left altogether and then... And then what? Pretend nothing had happened? Could she do that?

Steeling herself, Kha stepped out of the casing and scrambled down the scaffold onto the jetty. She could see the intruders' torch bobbing along the wooden walkways towards post number four. With all the arts of stealth that almost thirty years of life in a rigidly controlled environment had given her, she crept along the walkways behind them.

 

"Badon!"

Rebus looked up from the card table. Across the rec room, Junior Trooper Dev waved the phone at him.

"Who is it?" Rebus called.

"Someone about a car! I think."

Rebus looked at his hand, then at his opponents. He sighed. "Fold."

 

Rebus could see at once that Dr Kha really was as worried as she had sounded on the telephone.

"I want you to know that I wouldn't do this for just anyone and I left a grand parade over a five hundred cestarii pot to come here."

Dr Kha's lip began to tremble.

"But for you I don't mind, Dor," he hastily assured her.

"Dor?" she asked.

"I was thinking about it and I thought we could shorten your name to Dor."

"But my last name is Kha. Do I really want to be known as 'Kha Dor'?"

"Possibly not," he conceded. The banter had served its purpose and she looked a little less upset. "So what's troubling you?"

"Someone has disconnected all of the sonar posts. They've cut the relays to the control centre."

Rebus stared at her. "What?"

"Someone has disconnected all of the sonar posts. They've cut the relays to the control centre."

"Alright, I heard what you... So we need to _reconnect_ them, if you haven't done that already?"

Kha shook her head. "I don't know if they're still out there somewhere."

"Well, I'll keep an eye out while you fix the relays."

Kha nodded and turned to lead the way. Rebus followed and could not help but be impressed by her calm as she moved from post to post, rewiring the relay blisters which topped each of the cases. It was as though she had entirely forgotten her fear as soon as there was work to absorb her attention.

 _I just hope the saboteurs have gone,_ Rebus thought to himself. _It's not like parolees get to carry sidearms_.

Suddenly, floodlights cast their beams out over the water.

Kha cried out in fear. "What's happening?"

"The sonar must have picked something up," Rebus realised. "We'd better get away from here; if the defence teams come down and catch us here they might not stop to find out that you're the hero of the hour."

From the interior of the island, the sound of whining gyrolift rotors and roaring car engines cut through the night.

"They're efficient, at least," Kha noted.

"Good thing too. Look." Rebus pointed out across the floodlit waters.

Following his finger, Kha saw a v-shaped wake cutting through the surf, and a second some distance beyond. "Submarines," she declared. Even as she spoke the two wakes veered away from one another as the two submersibles, realising that they were detected, swung away towards the open sea and accelerated away from the shore.

A few moments later, a trio of Demilance gyrolift gunships flew overhead and struck out in pursuit, their whirling rotors straining under the weight of torpedoes and depth charges that hung from the ordnance racks. Behind them came a twin-rotor R661, with a sonar rig strapped to its fuselage.

"Hmm," Rebus mused.

"Rebus?"

"They won't get them," Rebus said. "The Demilances are fast enough to keep up with those submarines, even laden as they are, but without the R661's sonar they won't be able to target them once they reach deep water. Probably shouldn't have switched on the floodlights until the cars were in place."

Kha looked away from the gyrolifts. "Did you hear something?" she asked.

"What sort of something?"

"It was like one of the sonar posts slipping onto the rocks. Oh, gods; if number three has slipped it will fill with water and... "

"It hasn't. Look; you can see it's still up on its scaffold. So if that wasn't the metal can hitting the rocks then... " Rebus pursed his lips. "Stay down," he cautioned. "Stay here."

Despite his warning and the feeling of her heart rising into her mouth, Kha followed as Rebus made his way across the rocks. Her whole body tingled with excitement and, despite her fear, she felt sure that she had never been so alive. For a moment, she knew herself ready to take on the world, but then another metallic thump sounded ahead of her and she ducked behind a rock, her pulse thundering in her ears.

As she forced herself to be calm, Kha heard whispering voices from the same direction as the thumps. She could not make out words, but recognised the voices of soldiers. With all the courage she could muster, she moved closer. She could see Rebus crouching behind a cluster of rocks and the sight of him gave her courage; she was afraid, but she could not leave her first and only friend alone in danger.

Rebus pushed himself up so that he could peek over the line of rocks. As he had feared, a third submersible had beached on a strand and soldiers were emerging from it. The submarine could not have been more than three yards long, but four armed men now stood on the beach. The only giveaways that it was not some bizarre carnival illusion were the way the men were stretching to try to unkink their cramped muscles and the vicious-looking C-20 autocarbines that they held in their hands.

It was hard to say who might have sent these men. Langara had always been a melting pot of the many races brought upon her by the gods and there were only a handful of ethnic groups on the planet who showed distinctive physical characteristics. The élite bloodlines tended to emphasise extremes of colouration, the Isteri were quite distinctive and most Drusari claimed that they could spot their own, but these were of neither group. They spoke Terranian, but lots of people spoke Terranian, and the C-20 was of Andari design, but cheap and easy to maintain and thus a great favourite with mercenaries the world over.

One man, who seemed to be the leader, spoke again. "The tide will start to go out in twenty minutes. Get the sub under water and let it drift out; we can't risk the engines if the sonar is operating."

"So much for our insiders," a second man grumbled.

"Get back in the can and rendezvous with two and three!" the leader hissed. "The rest of us can head into the hills; they'll never find us and we'll make contact to arrange a second insertion."

Unfortunately, they were right. There was too much of the island for the patrols to cover it all and too much cover to spot a cautious intruder from the air. That was _why_ the coastal defences were so important. Three armed enemies could put the whole project in jeopardy and, despite a reluctance to put himself at risk, Rebus knew that he could not allow that.

He took out his flashlight and shone it down onto the beach. "Halt! Drop your weapons!" He called out as loudly as he could, hoping to attract the attention of the patrols currently sweeping the wrong part of the beach.

The four men on the beach lifted their carbines and arrayed themselves in a defensive pattern. They were well-trained, whoever they were.

"You are surrounded. Drop your weapons and raise your hands above your heads or we will open fire."

"I hear one voice," the leader replied. "I see one light." He turned so that the shrouded barrel of his C-20 pointed directly at Rebus.

Away to Rebus's right, Kha heard this exchange. Eager to help she fumbled with the lamp on her forehead. The beam flashed into the night and fell on a black-clad figure creeping through the darkness and glinted on the knife in his hand.

"Rebus!" she called.

Rebus spun on the balls of his feet and saw the man lunging at him from the shadows. He put up his hands and the knife cut a long gash in his left forearm, but his right hand caught the attacker's wrist and they fell to the ground, grappling for control of the blade.

Kha raced over, but in the tangle of limbs she could see no way to help Rebus without risking further harm to him. As she glanced about, however, she saw that the attacker had dropped his main weapon in the struggle. There on the sand lay a squat, black C-20.

From the beach, feet crunched on the sand as the remaining commandos ran to aid their comrade. Without letting herself think too much about what she was doing, Kha scooped up the carbine, leaned her body against the rocks, braced the weapon to her shoulder and fired. Five hours basic pistol training was scarcely sufficient to allow her any control over an overpowered automatic weapon like the C-20, but it was enough for her to remember such details as the safety catch and the carbine discharged with a lusty roar, causing the commandos to dive for what little cover there was and almost inadvertently putting a bullet through the leg of their leader.

"Back!" he roared, barely controlling his agony. "Fall back."

The man who was grappling with Rebus broke away and scrambled over the rocks. Rebus let him go and cradled his injured arm, panting for breath as the adrenaline began to wear off. He staggered up and leaned on the rocks beside Kha to watch as the commandos stuffed themselves into the cramped submarine and wrestled with the hatch.

Engines roared behind Rebus and Kha and lights out at sea showed the gyrolifts returning from their hunt. Mobile spotlights flared, one beam lighting the submarine and another falling on the valiant defenders.

"Drop your weapons!" A voice behind the light ordered.

"But... " Kha began to turn, but Rebus clamped a hand over the C-20 and pushed the barrel down.

"Drop the weapon now, explain later," he told her. "Just let go of the carbine."

"I'm not sure I can," she admitted.

Gently, Rebus peeled back her adrenaline-stiffened fingers and removed the carbine from her grasp. Holding it by the barrel he first lifted it above his head, then crouched and set it on the sand. At once, three men appeared to seize hold of them and a dozen more poured onto the beach.

"Are you okay, Dor?" Rebus asked as a large man in Andari uniform cuffed his hands behind his back.

"Yes. You?"

"Nothing that won't heal."

"I don't understand," she admitted. "Why are they arresting us?"

"Just being cautious. Don't worry; you did well tonight."

"I did?"

"You did."

*

_Stargate Command,  
The Next Day_

Louise suppressed a shudder as she stepped towards the event horizon. She had no love of Gate travel and her past experiences on other worlds had not been very encouraging. Despite knowing that a safe haven and Jonas lay on the far side on this occasion, she could not escape a sense of deep foreboding.

"Does this hurt?" Molly asked warily.

"Nah," Louise assured her.

"Then why do you look like you're about to grab hold of a live cable?"

Louise flashed the technician a weak grin and then stepped through the Gate. Stars swirled about her as she was catapulted across space, and a moment later she stepped out into a space that looked worryingly similar to a Goa'uld hall.

"Oh my God, that was like the worst trip ever!" Molly exclaimed.

Louise took a step forward, hardly noticing her friend's unique contribution to interstellar diplomacy. Her gaze was riveted on the man standing at the base of the ramp.

He took a step forward as Louise moved towards him and he smiled. "Welcome to the Threshold," he said.

Louise grinned foolishly. "Hello, Jonas," she replied. "It's... been a while."

Jonas blushed. "Yeah. I'm sorry I haven't called, but you should see what the charge is from here."

Louise laughed far too loudly. Behind her, Molly gave a soft cough.

"Oh! This is Senior Airman Máire MacVeigh," Louise explained.

"Tech support," Molly added. "I was told you had some problems with the computers we sold you."

Jonas nodded and waved at one of the guards. "Take Senior Airman MacVeigh to see the Chief," he ordered. "Chief Lenaux will fill you in on our problems," he told Molly. "Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated."

"All part of the service," Molly assured him.

"She's doing better than I did my first time out," Louise noted as Molly walked away.

There was an uncomfortable pause and then Jonas said, quite suddenly: "It's good to see you, Louise. You look well."

"It's good to see _you_. You look like crap."

Jonas laughed. "I suppose I do. It's been a tough time."

"You look like you need a break," she added.

"Perhaps, but I really can't afford to take one. I've set back three appointments just to come down to the Threshold to meet you."

"I'm flattered."

Jonas grimaced. "I'm afraid I have to leave you again now," he admitted. "I must get back to work, but I've asked Kianna to come and look after you."

"Joy," Louise said, deadpan.

"Could you... Would you like to join me for dinner later on?" Jonas offered.

 _Is a bear Catholic?_ Louise thought to herself. _Does the Pope..._ "I'd love that," she said.

"So would I," he assured her.

Louise suddenly found that she was having trouble swallowing.

"You remember Kianna?"

It took a moment for Louise to realise that Jonas was speaking to her again and to process the words; a moment longer to focus on the melancholy blonde at his side. "How could I forget her?" she growled.

"Hello, Miss Stillwell," Kianna Cyr said. Her expression was one of kindness and sympathy and Louise almost immediately felt her desire to throttle the woman double and redouble.

"Dr Cyr," Louise replied, with a face that looked as though she were chewing a wasp. "How _lovely_ to see you."

"I'll see you this evening then?" Jonas asked. He wore a concerned face, apparently not as oblivious to Louise's rage as he had always seemed to her feelings for him.

"Yes," she replied listlessly, her heart sinking as she realised that she had leaped to the conclusion – no doubt erroneous – that Jonas had meant her to dine _alone_ with him. On the other hand, Jonas' face did fall with remarkable sharpness at her sudden lack of enthusiasm.

"Don't let us keep you, Director," Kianna told Jonas. "I'm sure I can keep Miss Stillwell entertained and she'll probably feel better for getting out of the Threshold. Whatever we may have done with the decoration, it is a little oppressive with all of those shutters and gunports."

In fact, Louise had been too busy gaping at Jonas to even notice the shutters and gunports.

"Of course," Jonas agreed uncertainly. Despite his doubts, however, he was clearly rushed off his feet and with a mumbled apology he departed.

Kianna took Louise's arm and led her from the Threshold. "He looks terrible, doesn't he," she whispered.

For a moment, Louise was tempted to say something snappish about succubae, but Kianna's concern was as genuine as her own. "Yes," she agreed. "He looks ten years older."

"The project is killing him. I just hope that you can provide the cure."

Louise frowned. "Me?" she asked, alarmed. "Shouldn't you... "

Kianna shook her head, sadly. "Not I," she assured Louise. "Far from it. I'll get you cuffed, then let's go to the bar and I'll explain over a drink."

*

Having found no success with Dr Stele the day before, Leleth Aaen tried to speak to Kianna Cyr first thing in the morning, before their respective diaries filled up for the day. Leleth knew that the ADT was protective of Jonas Quinn, but believed that that could be turned to her cause. It was after all as much in his interest as in the interest of the programme for Jonas Quinn to take some time to rest and recover from his endeavours. Unfortunately, Kianna Cyr was nowhere to be found and so Leleth was compelled to take her case to the third member of the senior council; Chief Lenaux.

She found the Chief in conference with a woman in SGC fatigues. Leleth had not seen that uniform since her orientation tour of the Alpha Site; a tour that had seemed designed to try to convince the members of the SEG Expeditionary Force that they were hopelessly inferior to those of the SGC.

With impeccable formality, the Chief introduced Senior Airman MacVeigh from the SGC.

"We are honoured by a visit from an SG team?" Leleth asked wryly.

"Nothing so exalted, Ma'am," MacVeigh assured her. "Just a small delegation. I think I'd best make a start, Chief Lenaux," she added. "Who gets the report when I'm finished?"

"Better to bring it to me," he replied. "I'm not exactly the technical one, but the others are even busier than I am. If you need any help, just ask the Group Administrator, Miss Isato; she'll know who to assign."

"Right," MacVeigh agreed. "I'm on it. Colonel," she added respectfully.

"Lance-Colonel," Leleth corrected.

"Andari ranks don't take contraction," Lenaux explained. "A lance-colonel is always a lance-colonel... "

"A senior commander always a senior commander," Leleth added quietly.

Lenaux's eyes narrowed. "Quite," he growled.

MacVeigh coughed awkwardly. "Sir. Ma'am." Perhaps wisely, she then fled the room with all dignified haste.

"Did you just come to gloat, Aaen?" Lenaux demanded. "Or is there a reason for our visit?"

Leleth flushed, regretting her quip. "You _are_ a senior commander still," she reminded him.

"But I may not be called so, and besides it would be a joke for a man of my years to go by such a title. Now, I am quite busy; you may have heard that we had an attempted landing last night."

Leleth stamped down hard on her instinctive response, which would have been defensive and bitter. She looked at the man she would once have followed into hell and tried to forget how much she hated him. "I need your help," she said, through gritted teeth.

The Chief raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"Something must be done," Leleth pressed on. "Mr Quinn's current state of exhaustion must be addressed; he must be obliged to stand down and to recover himself before he can be allowed to retake the directorship.

"Where were you at twenty-five hours on Losna last?" Lenaux responded.

Leleth stopped short. "I don't... I can't recall offhand. Probably in bed."

"You weren't."

"And how do you know?"

"Because your quarters – all of the dormitories and officers' quarters – are on the security grid," Lenaux replied. "Your tracer was off the grid from twelve minutes before twenty-five hours until three minutes after midnight. What were you doing for those three and a quarter hours?"

"I don't specifically recall," Leleth insisted, fidgeting with the tracer cuff around her left wrist. "And I refuse to be held accountable for the failings of your security system. Your bloody grid has more holes than coverage."

"This may be true, but the fact remains that you disappeared from the grid at the same time every two or three days."

"You have been spying on me!"

Lenaux shrugged. "The grid effectively spies on everyone; including myself," he reminded her.

Leleth narrowed her eyes. "The quantity of data is huge and the software is crude. You'd never have noticed if you weren't keeping tabs on me in particular. I know you don't like me, Seni... " She bit off the appellation, but too late to judge by the flicker in Lenaux's eyelid. "Chief Lenaux, but I had thought that I might have been trusted. I went through enough screenings to get this post, after all."

"The Director trusts everyone," Lenaux assured her, "therefore I must trust no-one. You have been off the sensor grid more often than _almost_ anyone else in the facility. In fact, only one person has spent as much time outside the areas covered by the grid as you have, and mostly at the same times as you."

Leleth flushed with rage. "How dare you... !"

"It's my job."

"This will not rest," she insisted.

"So take it to the Director; the man you want to have replaced," Lenaux suggested.

"Damn you!" Leleth snapped. She stormed to the door, pausing only to fire over her shoulder: "Damn you to Orcus."

*

_The Colony_

After spending a night in the cells for saving the entire SEG from armed infiltrations, Rebus was in the mood for a little mischief. He was released shortly before dawn and by the time the early watch came on at eight hours he had spoken to half-a-dozen contacts, found a storage space and was ready to fall back into his own habits. Let them catch him. Let them throw him in the cells and melt the key to make a bolt; he had little enough left to lose. His earlier disgrace had cost him his family, most of his friends and any real future in the armed forces; no-one wanted a thirty-year-old trooper. As for his new friend, there had been no sign of Kha when he was released. No doubt the élite had whisked her away and she had seemingly made little enough effort to have him released earlier.

Rebus knew that he was being unfair, but then he also knew that he was being foolish. That did not stop him either. He knew the right people and the right kinds of people; by the time they sent him down he could have a tidy sum squirreled away where no-one would ever think to look for it, just waiting and earning interest to pay for his release party.

Of course, there was one other hurdle to be jumped before he could really get to work.

"Trooper Badon?"

"Senior Trooper," Rebus replied politely.

"Sergeant-at-Arms would like a word with you," the man said, gesturing towards one of the storehouses.

"Sure."

Rebus walked ahead of the s-troop to the storehouse door and went through. He was not in the least surprised when the door slammed shut behind him and hands grabbed his arms. He grunted in pain as he was flung to the floor, more from his injury of the night before than because of his current treatment.

He looked up at a pair of shiny, non-regulation boots, then further up to the tall, powerful figure of Sergeant-at-Arms Melko of the Terranian Military Command. As he picked himself up, Rebus looked around. He was in the corner of the storehouse, which had been done out as a sort of office, complete with desk and adding machine. A folding bed stood beside the desk. There were five people present besides Rebus himself: Melko, two Andari drivers, another Kelownan trooper and a Terranian woman-at-arms. The Senior Trooper who had brought him was not in the room; no doubt he was watching the door.

"So this is the local chamber of commerce," Rebus said.

"You've got a big mouth, Badon," Melko growled. "You should show some respect in your unpromising situation."

Rebus drew himself up straight and saluted. "Sir. Sorry, Sir!" he snapped.

Melko nodded and one of the drivers kicked Rebus in the back of his knee. With an effort, and by shifting most of his weight to the other foot, Rebus stayed standing. When they hit the other knee – and they would – he'd go down hard, but he needed to show a little resistance at this stage in the game.

"You've got guts, but no brains. You don't call me 'sir', little man; I work for a living."

Rebus chuckled. "If you worked for your living, I wouldn't be in here."

The other knee bent forward under the impact of a booted foot and Rebus hit the ground.

"Two Andari, two Kelownans – including the s-troop outside – and of course yourself and your good lady wife from Terrania," Rebus commented.

The woman-at-arms started towards Rebus, angered at the suggestion she had only gained a place in Melko's racket by sleeping with the boss, but the sergeant stopped her with a gesture.

"Your point?" he asked.

"Just that it's beautiful," Rebus replied, sitting up as casually as he could manage. "It's a touching example of the international cooperation that this project is all about; a glowing tribute to the success of the SEG. They should put you in the brochure, really."

Melko nodded again and the woman-at-arms grabbed Rebus by the hair and punched him across the jaw. His head snapped back; his vision swam and the tearing pain of sudden hair loss shot through his scalp. The woman-at-arms was a big girl and she had a punch that would not have shamed a professional boxer.

"We run the black market around here, Badon," she hissed. "Try and muscle in" – she punched him again – "and we'll muscle back."

"Couldn't just gimme a frien'ly warning?" Rebus asked; he was punch-drunk and his words came out slurred. His eyes focused for a second and he noted with distracted interest that the woman's name tag bore the inappropriate moniker 'Gentle'.

"This is a friendly warning," Melko assured him.

Gentle hit Rebus again, then the others joined in. It was, all in all, a thoroughly professional job, with little risk of serious harm to anyone... except for Rebus of course. Just as the world was becoming dim around him, a voice called out: "Enough!"

As he blacked out, the only thing that Rebus was sure of was that it was not Melko's voice.

*

_The Stargate Facility_

Jonas returned to his office to find the subject of his first delayed appointment waiting for him.

"You are late," Dr Nastasi Tai growled.

"I was obliged to shift our appointment on a matter of interstellar diplomacy," Jonas replied. "You were informed."

"As the reasoning was insufficient; I chose to ignore the change. Therefore you are late."

For all his acuity, Jonas was unable to tell whether Tai was being deliberately offensive or whether it just came naturally to him. Tai's appointment was one of the compromises that Jonas had been forced to make in order to maintain the support of the various major governments of Langara. The Terranians had refused to allow him to select the various academics and officers that he felt appropriate to the Group's mission unless he accepted certain additional personnel drawn from the upper echelons of the military and scientific élite, including Subgeneral Élite Liten Blitze, the senior member of the Military Oversight Commission and Academician Élite Nastasi Tai.

The Terranian élite orders were selectively bred for excellence in particular military and scientific fields. Members of the élite lived in cloistered halls and foreswore sexual relations save as a part of the ongoing breeding programme. They were invariably brilliant in their field, utterly out of their depth anywhere else and – with the exception of the pastoral élite – socially incompetent in one way or another. Jonas found them a strange breed, although with the exception of Nastasi Tai he did not find them especially objectionable.

"You were early," Jonas replied blandly, striving to contain his intense dislike of the man. "However, please come in now." He turned to lead the way into his office; Tai followed impatiently on his heels and declined to sit.

"What I have to say will not take long. I have prepared a report which goes into more detail."

"Of course you have."

"I have outlined a programme for accelerating preparation work on the Stargate Programme," Tai explained. "If you persuade the Joint Ruling Council to exercise its powers under the terms of Emergency Resolution 13 and declare the Project a matter of planetary imperative, we can draft in the indentured workforce that we require. We could be ready to send EF-1 on their first offworld mission in a matter of weeks. I have also proposed a replacement policy statement and charter."

"Have you now?"

"The existing policy is too meek."

"You have said that before."

"And you have rejected my proposals," Tai agreed with perfect calm. "However, I believe that if you review my proposed draft, you will find that my position becomes clearer... "

"You make your position pretty clear with your plan to use slave labour... "

" _Indentured_ workers," the Terranian insisted.

"... _slave labour_ to work on the facility. You are the worst kind of academic zealot."

At this, Tai's perfect composure snapped. "And you are too timid to serve the needs of this world!" he snapped.

 _And you are an amoral louse_ , Jonas wanted to retort and just barely managed to hold back from saying. "I am the Director of this Group and I will decide our policy," he insisted. "Your protests will, as ever, be taken under advisement." _And thank you for that phrase, General Hammond_ , he thought to himself.

"Mr Quinn," Tai hissed, "you should know that my government has very definite plans for the Expeditionary Group. They will demand results – results that this travesty of a policy will fail to produce – and if you can not prove the efficacy of your approach – as you will not – I think it likely that you will find yourself replaced, hero of the Anubite invasion or not."

Jonas flushed with rage and gripped the arm of his chair until his knuckles turned white. He pressed his eyes closed, fighting to control his temper. He was tired and irritable already and Tai made him want to shriek at the best of times. "Doctor Tai, I don't think we can get very far if you are going to resort to threats."

Tai planted his hands on the desk and loomed over Jonas. "You are working on borrowed time, Quinn. The Andari Federation will not continue to support your Directorship in Council when it becomes clear that your leadership is ineffective in carrying this planet forwards and your state of grace with your own government will not prove inexhaustible. You can accept my proposals now or I can enact them when I replace you; it is for you to... "

The Terranian broke off with a cry as Jonas sprang to his feet. Tai tripped, staggered and fell to the ground. He tried to push himself upright before Jonas could reach him, but Jonas had not moved from behind his desk.

"Get out of my office, Tai," he growled and the rage on his face was as frightening as any physical threat. "Go back to the labs and do your job. If you ever threaten me again, if you try to replace me, if you tell me how to run this programme, I will... make you regret it."

Tai rose to his feet, struggling to regain his composure. As he scrambled to the door, he flashed a look of rage and fear at Jonas, who had resumed his seat and turned his attention to his paperwork.

"You're insane, Quinn!"

Jonas looked up calmly. "Good morning, Professor Tai."

Faced with this extraordinary shift in gear, the Terranian blenched and left the office with all the speed his battered dignity would allow. Jonas watched him go and then, after a moment, wiped his hand over his face. "I really hate that man," he sighed.

*

The officers mess had a terrace which looked out over the wide, blue ocean that surrounded the island of Amamos. The sun shone above with Mediterranean warmth. Sixty feet below, the surf drove against the base of a cliff wall, the sound drifting up to the terrace as a gentle murmur.

Louise sat at a table and tugged at her new tracer cuff. She was used to wearing a watch, but now it felt as though she were wearing two at once. "Is this strictly necessary?" she asked as Kianna returned.

"Absolutely," Kianna replied, setting down a glass of dark liquid with a white, frothy head.

"I'm not much of a stout drinker," Louise noted warily.

"Stout?"

"What we'd call this," Louise explained. "Now, Molly lives on it, but... "

Kianna took a long drink from her own glass. "If you don't like it I can get you something different."

Louise shook her head. "I'll give it a try," she replied. "Now, what about the wristband?"

"It's a tracer," Kianna explained. "We've got over a thousand personnel from a dozen nations and it's a fool's bet that none of them have been suborned by their own or someone else's government. The Chief and his staff have installed a detection grid, which picks up a signal from the wristband and keeps track of each cuff's location."

"Isn't that a little big brother?"

"Huh?"

"Um... intrusive," Louise explained.

"It doesn't say what we're doing, just where we are," Kianna assured her. "So mostly it shows the security techs that we're in our offices."

"Jonas certainly looks as though he doesn't get out much."

Kianna gave a small smile. "He pushes himself far too hard," she agreed. "You care a great deal about him, don't you?"

"Yes," Louise admitted impatiently. She picked up her drink, took a long swallow and choked on the heavy beverage. "Oh, God that's foul!"

Kianna laughed. "Alright; I'll get you something less... grown-up."

Louise scowled at her.

"You don't have to be jealous of me," Kianna said.

"Who said I was jealous?"

"No-one had to _say_ anything," Kianna assured her. "You've been willing me to die of a sudden seizure since we first met a couple of months ago. Kelan was very amused."

Louise was very angry. "Who's Kelan?" she asked sharply, picturing Kianna gossiping about her with her friends.

Kianna made no reply; instead she reached back and tapped the nape of her neck.

After a moment, Louise realised what it was that Kianna meant. "Oh."

"You don't need to be jealous because I have never been Jonas' lover. That was Kelan; she thought it was the best way to keep him close."

Louise sniffed. "Still did better than I did. He never noticed I was interested. Or maybe _he_ just wasn't interested," she added bitterly.

"Kelan had to be pretty damn pushy," Kianna assured her. "But... Look, very little would make me happier than for Jonas to find something – or someone – to take his mind off things a little, and... " She coughed, awkwardly.

"Dr Cyr?"

"I always thought that you and he would be... Kelan thought that was pretty funny as well."

"Oh."

"I think if anyone would be good for him, it would be you, Louise," Kianna went on, "but there's something you should know."

"What?"

"A lot of people went missing when Anubis attacked and when the naquadria quakes began we were just beginning to recover. A lot of people were never found. Jonas and his family weren't close... "

"No!"

"It took a long time for him to realise that they weren't coming back. They weren't close and he hadn't heard from them in a long time. When he visited Dr Kieran, Jonas tried to make contact but his father told him not to speak to them. When he came back he wasn't keen to be rejected again, so it was months before he tried to get in touch with them and... "

"How many were there?"

"His mother and father, and his younger sister. When he found out they were gone, it catalysed his decision to leave the JRC and focus his energies on research. There are still rescue teams trawling the wreckage of the cities and he checks the reports every now and then, but he doesn't have much hope left. Even if it wasn't for his damn fool propriety, I don't know if he could see a good thing if it landed in his lap at the moment."

"That's terrible," Louise whispered. "Poor Jonas."

"I'll get you that drink," Kianna said.

She rose and moved back to the bar, but for a long moment Louise did not register her departure. She was lost in thought, trying to fathom how terrible it would be to go home and discover that your family were all dead. For Louise, whose family were so tight-knit that it pained her to keep her work with the SGC secret from them, such a loss was unthinkable and she could not believe that it would have been much easier for Jonas.

"Poor Jonas," she murmured again. She felt a pang of sympathy so visceral that it almost made her gasp aloud. To lose your mother and father; a sister. Her own sister, Ashley, was a prancing It-girl – Louise had never been sure what girl actually defined an It-girl, but whatever the hell an It-girl was, Ashley was it – and they had never been as close as Louise was to their brother, David, but still the thought of losing Ash, of never being annoyed by her drawling, affected voice or her phoney laugh – let alone of never against sharing one of the rare, unguarded moments when she let herself be herself – was unbearable.

A crash of broken glass drew Louise from her funk. She looked up and saw Kianna standing in a puddle of spilled beer, facing the man who had walked into her. Her face was suffused with instinctive anger, but even as she opened her mouth to snap, her expression softened. Louise could not hear what she said, nor the man's reply, but she could _see_. She saw hands seeking, but never reaching each other; bodies that would have touched if only feet would move.

It took several minutes for Kianna to drag herself away, gesturing apologetically towards Louise – 'I'd like to stay and talk and maybe make out some, but I have to look after the Earth girl,' Louise imagined her saying – before returning to the table, glancing back over her shoulder three times in the ten feet that she had to walk and once more as she sat down.

"Boy, am I thirsty," Louise said, pointedly.

Kianna blushed. "I, ah, had an accident. Dr Stele is getting you another."

"And does Dr Stele have a first name?"

"Gereth," Kianna agreed.

Louise grinned. "So I really don't have to worry about the competition?"

"Well, yes," Kianna corrected, "just not from me. Not that there's anything between Gereth and me."

"That wasn't how it looked to me."

Kianna sighed and then glanced over her shoulder again before explaining: "It's in the past."

"The hell it is!" If Louise surprised herself with her vehemence, it was as nothing to the shock in Kianna's expression. "That is, it didn't look like ancient history. Ancient history doesn't sizzle that way."

As the shock faded, Kianna sank her head into her shoulders, the shoulders meeting her halfway in a disconsolate shrug. "There's only so much you can take back; I don't think that having your dead mother's antique engagement ring thrown into a pile of chemical waste is something that many men could forgive."

Louise was stunned. "How could you... ?" she began, before realising the truth. She tapped the back of her neck and Kianna nodded.

"She needed to be free to seduce Jonas and... "

"... and she thought it would be funny to rip your fiancé's heart out and grind it into the dirt beneath her... your... her heel while she was at it."

"Her wacky sense of humour," Kianna agreed with a grimace.

"And now you meet up here. Is that coincidence?"

Kianna shook her head. "Gereth _is_ a highly qualified doctor and a brilliant epidemiologist, but I think the final deciding factor was that Jonas wanted to make up for taking advantage of me."

"But he didn't... Only of course, he's such a gentleman that he _has_ to blame himself."

"He's a good man and I am grateful to him for bringing Gereth here, but I don't think it's going to work. Kelan put him through too much and it was _me_ that he saw. We hadn't been together that long, either, so there's not much to weigh against it. I just can't see how... "

Louise lifted her hand a fraction, fingers spread to caution Kianna to silence as Gereth Stele approached the table. He set a drink on the table and smiled at Louise. "Welcome to Amamos, Miss Stillwell," he said. "I hope you have a pleasant stay."

"Thank you, Dr Stele," she replied.

He nodded. "I'll leave you to talk."

"You could stay," Louise suggested innocently. "Might be nice to hear a different viewpoint."

"I should get back to work."

"But you've only just arrived," Louise insisted, "and it's such a lovely day. Besides, there's this pint of peat water that someone's got to drink."

Gereth gave a soft chuckle, raised his hands in surrender and sat down; Louise pushed her barely-touched glass of stout towards him.

"You're so lucky," Louise went on, addressing both of her hosts. "If the SGC was based somewhere as beautiful as this I doubt we'd ever get any work done."

"It was just that, actually," Kianna admitted. "Luck, I mean. The palace of Thanos was protected by three ancient devices called the Colossi."

"If you look behind you, you'll see one of the Colossi," Gereth added.

Louise turned and looked. Some miles distant, a great finger of rock jutted out of the water.

"That contains the machines which generate the defences," Kianna explained. "The first is an electromagnetic field which disrupts navigation and sensors. The second is a cloaking device which conceals the island and masks the massive distortion which it creates by vaporising sea water to form a dense cloud of mist. Finally, the Colossi can – at full power – generate an energy shield to protect the island from bombardment.

The defences have degraded over the years, of course, but the Anas Triangle has had a bad reputation for centuries. Ships vanishing or going miles off course, mysterious electrical discharges."

"Sounds familiar," Louise admitted.

"No-one knew why, of course, until... " Kianna broke off.

"Until Ba'al's fleet spotted the island from orbit and Kelan brought the knowledge, indirectly, to us," Gereth finished, speaking primarily to his drink. He drained the glass with worrying speed and stood up again. "It has been a pleasure, Miss Stillwell."

"Likewise," she assured him. As he walked away, she slumped in her seat. "I'm sorry, Kianna. Who knew 'it's a lovely day' would turn out to be such a controversial topic?"

*

Dr Kha sat in the interrogation room, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes fixed directly ahead of her. Every outward sign suggested that she was entirely at her ease, but this was merely another legacy of the convent. The Prioress of her house had possessed a canine ability to smell fear and had attributed all fear to guilt. The girls under her authority had learned swiftly to control their emotions, lest they be punished for something that they had not done. She felt in desperate need of chocolate, but the patrol had confiscated it; contraband, they had claimed.

She had been allowed to clean up and change before being brought up to the Facility to be interviewed and she had dressed in her formal robes, as though she were attending a disciplinary hearing at the convent. The deep burgundy fabric was too heavy for the climate, however, and she was sweating horribly, so that her hair – so recently washed and brushed – was starting to stick to the back of her neck. Despite her best efforts, she also knew that there was still grease beneath her fingernails.

She rose when the door opened behind her, but did not turn, instead waiting for her interrogators to walk around to the chairs opposite her. Only when she saw them did she slip and allow her surprise to show.

"Assistant Director Lenaux!" she gasped. "Academician Tai!"

"Please sit down, Dr Kha," Lenaux said. "I apologise for keeping you waiting for so long." He pressed the record button on the cassette deck built into the table. "Beginning interview; time code marked." As he said this, he pressed the button to record the current time on the magnetic tape. He looked up at Kha and smiled. "I want you to understand that you are not under arrest and that you are free to leave at any time, although to do so might compromise your future involvement in the Stargate Project."

"I understand," she replied. "I want to help in any way I can."

"Good. For the records I am Assistant Director for Security, Mr Kaise Lenaux. CSO Academician Nastasi Tai... "

"Academician Élite," Tai corrected.

"Academician _Élite_ Nastasi Tai is present as a senior representative of the Scientific Élite to ensure that all correct protocol is maintained. If you could state your name, please?"

"Dr Eudora Kha," she replied.

"Not Dr Élite?" Leanux asked.

Kha shook her head. "My full title and name is Engineer Élite Dr Eudora Iphne Kha; only lectors and above attach the élite appellation directly to their honorific."

"Understood. Now, I have read your statement regarding last night's events and all I need is a few clarifications. Did you recognise the two people that you observed sabotaging the sonar posts?"

"No, Assistant Director," Kha replied. "It was dark and they were whispering. I might have recognised them if I had been closer, but I was very afraid."

"Of course; I quite understand. Anything you can tell us."

"They were definitely Terranian," Kha noted. "From their accents I... "

"Preposterous!" Tai spluttered angrily. "You've barely stepped outside of a cloister in your life and you consider yourself an authority on Terranian accents?"

Dr Kha cast her eyes downwards. "I may have been mistaken," she admitted.

Lenaux snorted. "Or you may not have been. Academician _Élite_ , you are here to keep me from badgering your compatriot, not to harangue her yourself."

"My apologies, Chief Lenaux."

"You believed them to be Terranian?"

"I... may have been mistaken."

"Understood," Lenaux agreed. "Now, you said that their accents sounded Terranian – and accepting that you might have been mistaken – what language were they speaking?"

"Well, they were definitely _speaking_ Terranian. I suppose that might be why I thought that the accent sounded Terranian."

"Terranian is a very widespread language," Tai noted. There was a cold, satisfied gleam in his eye, more like a cloister-yard bully than a senior member of the élite.

Lenaux sighed. "As are Kelownan and Andari, but knowing what language the saboteurs used when they thought that no-one was listening will help us to narrow down the field of suspects."

This was true, Kha knew, but only just; many Langarans from the border regions learned at least two languages from birth and there were few adults who were not at least partially bilingual. Moreover, Terranian was a trade language, used by residents of many of the independent states as a common tongue.

"What of the commandos?" Lenaux asked.

"Trooper Badon challenged them in Terranian and they responded in the same language," Kha replied.

"Because he challenged in Terranian," Tai scoffed.

" _Academician Élite_. If you do not desist I shall have you removed."

Tai glowered poisonously at Lenaux, but said nothing. Kha felt a trickle of sweat run down her back.

"In your own words please, Dr Kha."

Kha swallowed hard. "The leader spoke Terranian; the others hardly spoke at all. If I had to try and place them, I should have said that the leader _was_ Terranian, but the one he sent back to the submarine sounded less fluent. It was nothing major, just something in the inflection of his words; a slight hesitancy perhaps and the way he formed his long vowels. He might have been from one of the northern states, or even an Andari."

Lenaux raised an eyebrow. "Not much good with accents?" he asked Tai.

"The girl was frightened and confused and you are putting words into her mouth."

"On the contrary, I think that _you_ are taking words out of her mouth. However, I think that is all we need for the time being. Dr Kha, do you have any questions?"

"The commandos. Did you manage to capture them?"

Lenaux shook his head. "They attempted to submerge their craft. We held off on the torpedoes but the casing of the submarine sprang a leak. We dredged it up this morning; there were no survivors."

Dr Kha squeezed her eyes shut.

"That troubles you?" Tai demanded.

"I fired at them when the hatch was open," Kha explained. "I don't know where the shots went except that one of them hit a man in the leg and a shot to the _inside_ of the craft would do more harm than one outside. I never meant to hurt anyone, just to frighten them off and I might have... "

"It's hard to tell," Lenaux replied gently, "but it looks as though they simply failed to properly close the hatch before submerging. It wasn't anyone's fault."

Kha swallowed. "Thank you, Assistant Director. There was one other thing," she added.

"Yes?"

"Trooper Badon. The patrol seemed to think that _he_ had something to do with the attack, but he was there because I called him."

Lenaux nodded. "He's already been released," he assured her.

"However, he is a noted criminal," Tai added. "A black marketer, a thief and a spy."

"I doubt you would hold that last against him if he had not been a Kelownan spy against the Terranians," Lenaux noted. "But it is true that Trooper Badon is on parole from military detention; he is not the kind of friend you should be cultivating."

"It is unseemly for a member of the Scientific Élite to be consorting with a criminal. As your superior, I order you to break off all contact with the man. If you refuse to comply, you will be returned to your convent under a warrant of disobedience for _corrective_ training."

Kha shot a helpless look at Lenaux.

The Chief pursed his lips angrily. "So long as you remain on this base, you may associate with anyone you chose," he assured her, "but your order has the right to recall you. I can not interfere in that."

Tai looked unbearably smug. Kha had never seen a senior member of the élite look so self-satisfied. They could be proud, yes, but not so _arrogant_. Arrogance had invited disaster on the élite once before, bringing about an uprising that almost destroyed centuries of work and breeding. Humility, in seeming if not in fact, was now prized above all things. Kha stared at Tai in horror and his return gaze seemed to say 'I could crush you, little girl; just give me a reason.'

She shuddered and looked away.

Lenaux rose quite suddenly to his feet. "Interview ends. Time code marked." He pressed the button to mark the time, then shut off the recorder. "Thank you, Dr Kha," he said. "I'll detail someone to take you back to the Colony as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Assistant Director."

"Call me Chief; everyone does. Assistant Director sounds so dry."

He walked around the table and put a hand on her arm to guide her to the door. Tai followed and Kha could feel his icy disapproval, but Lenaux's presence was comforting and solid. He stopped at the door, so that he blocked the way entirely with Kha on the outside and Tai on the inside, and held out his hand. "Goodbye Dr Kha, and thank you again."

As they shook hands, he held her arm in place and slipped a packet from his pocket and into her sleeve. "And don't forget this," he added in a whisper. "I won't ask where it came from, but do be careful of the source."

"I... I will," she replied.

"Infantrywoman!" Lenaux called. "Escort Dr Kha to the gyropad and put her on a lift back to the Colony. She has important work to finish."

Dr Kha glanced back at him as she walked away. He had left the doorway and Academician Tai was watching her with his cold eyes. She turned from him and fixed her eyes on her shoes. She slipped a hand inside her sleeve and felt a familiar shape: a bar of chocolate with one square missing from the corner.

*

_The Colony_

Rebus hobbled from the infirmary, too proud to use a stick. He did not think that the doctor had bought his story – 'I fell down the stairs... onto some boots' – but the theory seemed to be that the patrol had beaten him up and it suited him to let people believe that.

As he made his way slowly towards his barracks, a woman fell into step beside him. "Need a hand, soldier?" she asked.

Rebus shied a little bit away from her.

"Hey! Something I said?"

Rebus turned his head to look at her through the eye that was not swollen most of the way shut. He saw, as he had expected, a woman with short, brown hair, but instead of the sour-faced glower he had expected, he saw a crooked, self-assured smile. "I'm sorry, Senior Sergeant," he said. "I thought you were Gentle."

"I can be," she assured him, but Rebus was pretty sure that she knew what he meant.

"Can I help you with something, Senior Sergeant?" Rebus asked. "I mean, obviously I'm not going to be much use for carrying heavy objects at the moment."

"Maybe you can," the senior sergeant replied. "Come with me."

Rebus laughed and then held his aching ribs. "Given I'm actually not much good for anything but body parts, I'm a little wary, but who am I to refuse an order?"

The senior sergeant led Rebus to the communications' centre. She paused at a side door and turned to look at him. Rebus got his first good look at the left of her face and realised that the crooked twist in her smile was caused by a scar that ran through that edge of her mouth.

"Are you sure you want to walk through this door?" she asked mockingly.

"You mean after the last time? Sure. Why not? After all, it was you that stopped them beating me up the last time."

He smile deepened and perhaps grew a little more teasing. "You're tougher than you look, Trooper. I like that. I'm Deva, by the way. Deva Lal."

"A pleasure to meet you, Senior Sergeant Lal," he replied. "And a particular pleasure to do so without your friends performing an interpretative dance on my ribcage."

"They're not friends, just colleagues." Without taking her eyes off him, Deva Lal turned the door handle and pushed the door open with her hip. "Step into my office," she invited, gesturing along the corridor behind.

Lal's 'office' was a store closet with a locked door. Inside, the cupboard was bare, with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling and a handful of empty shelves.

"It's nice," Rebus noted. "Sort of minimalist."

Lal shook her head in mock despair. "Honestly, Badon. I hear great things about you. They say you have a flair for the work, but I have to say, you just don't know when to shut your mouth."

Rebus shrugged. "Well, I normally get the message eventually, but by that time there's a boot in my mouth and it's difficult to shut."

"And is that your boot or someone else's?"

"One boot tastes much like another."

"I'll take your word for that; now will you shut the door please."

Rebus pulled the door closed behind him. Lal reached past him to turn the key in the lock, pushing up against him with something a little more deliberate than inadvertency.

"This is all so sudden, Deva," Rebus murmured.

"Keep saying your prayers, Trooper," she scoffed good-naturedly. She reached up to one of the empty shelves and pressed a button. The back wall of the closet swung open. "My office," she explained.

"Very nice."

The secret door led to a cramped space about five feet by ten, packed with shelves and cases and radio equipment. Rebus was impressed; Lal must have had some serious contacts on the construction crew to have 'lost' so much space in the structure.

"Suddenly I feel very second string."

"Probably that talking problem," Lal noted. "How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Like I've been worked over by a group of unimaginative goons."

"They have their uses, and you really shouldn't have made such an effort to piss off Melko and Gentle."

"Really, it was no trouble."

Lal sat down at a table and began fiddling with the radio rig.

"That's connected?" Rebus asked.

"Oh yes," she assured him. "This is one of my most lucrative lines. Bandwidth out of Amamos is severely restricted and the civvies are all desperate to call home. I'm running a public service, really. A friend on the mainland has a tap into the Andari phone network, so I can put people in touch with their loved ones."

"For a price."

"Of course." Lal pulled a keyboard towards herself and began to type. "Now, you're from Kelowna so it won't be a great line at the telephone end, but is there anyone you'd like to speak to?"

"I doubt I could afford it," Rebus assured her.

Lal turned and winked. "First time's free, Badon; you know that. Come on, who do you want to call?"

Rebus thought about it for a moment. "Lindau exchange, 457."

Lal tapped the information into the terminal. "Alright; it'll be a few minutes to make the connection and you'll have a little signal lag, but there won't be any time limits." She stood up and offered the chair to him. "When you're done, tap on the cupboard door and I'll let you out."

"You're not staying?"

"Of course not!" She looked shocked at the suggestion. "I'm not going to pry into your private conversation."

Rebus watched for a moment to see how she worked the mechanism for the secret door and, if he was honest, just to watch her. Scar or not, Deva Lal was an attractive woman, and quite brilliantly devious to boot. His mind was awhirl with the possibilities that the world offered to two such dishonest individuals, working in concert.

The door closed and he sat down, picked up the headset and put it on. There was no sound but a soft hiss of static. Rebus examined the rig, which was quite impressive. It was computer controlled and presumably tapped into the main arrays to piggy-back its signal on the authorised transmissions. He pushed the chair back a little and looked underneath the desk. He was not entirely surprised to see one of the SGC hard drives taped underneath.

"Clever girl," he murmured. _She keeps a log of every transmission. She doesn't need to listen to what her 'clients' are saying because she can play it back at her leisure, and if anyone tries to inform on her, she has the proof that they made an illegal call. No wonder she wanted me to take a free sample; now_ I'm _implicated already_.

His attention was dragged from this speculation by a dialling signal, which was then replaced by a soft chirrup.

There was a click. "Lindau 457."

Rebus swallowed hard. "Lannie?" he asked.

After a moment of silence, during which Rebus held his breath, the girl's voice spoke again. "Uncle Rebus?"

"Your mother isn't there, is she?"

"No, she's at work."

Rebus smiled. "Oh. Good. So, how are you doing, sweetheart?"

*

_The Stargate Facility_

Tanith Arden's smile was creating an ache at the corners of her mouth as she said for the third time. "I know that it is very short notice, but I'm afraid that Mr Quinn was called away on urgent business."

"We had an appointment," Dr Lee Taighairm insisted. A brilliant scholar, she had been passed over for the post of CSO because she was felt to lack initiative; her habit of doggedly pursuing a single point of view in any discussion was seen as supporting this decision.

"Dr Taighairm; Mr Streith... " Tanith began.

"We had an appointment," Matthus Streith echoed.

"Actually, sir, Dr Taighairm had an appointment," Tanith corrected, a trace of testiness beginning to show through the cracks in her smooth, professional manner. "You seem to have tagged along... again."

The two actually blushed at that and tried not to look at one another. Officially, any personal relationships between members of SEG was supposed to be declared, so as to avoid assigning couples to the same offworld expeditions, but these two – a Kelownan diplomat and a Terranian archaeologist – seemed to honestly believe that they had kept their involvement a secret.

"We had... " Taighairm began once more.

"Is there a problem Miss Arden?"

Tanith responded to Chief Lenaux's arrival as a drowning woman to a luxury yacht filled with cabana boys, cocktails and moisturiser.

"Not at all, Chief. I was just explaining to Dr Taighairm and Mr Streith that Mr Quinn has been called away and will be unable to keep their appointment."

"An urgent security matter," Lenaux agreed. "I'm sure Miss Arden can reschedule your meeting."

"But we had... " Faced with Lenaux's stony face, neither smiling nor frowning, Taighairm's nerve broke. "Of course. Miss Arden, when might it be convenient to... "

"Eighteen hours this afternoon?" Tanith suggested at once.

"If that is the earliest... "

"Excellent. Good of you to come and I apologise again that it was not possible to provide more warning."

"Well we... "

"Good day, Dr Taighairm; Mr Streith," Lenaux rumbled.

"Good day, sir," they mumbled in reply.

"I swear," Tanith confided once she was alone with Lenaux, "if he doesn't take a weekend off – and by extension give me one – soon, I am going to _shoot_ someone."

Lenaux gave a short, dry chuckle. "With the number of people who've told me they don't think he's standing the pressure, I wouldn't be surprised if you got a chance soon enough."

"To take a break or to shoot someone?" Tanith's grin turned to a frown. "You think someone might actually try to hurt him?"

"Just stay on your toes and try not to let snippy academics distract you from your _real_ job, Dragoon."

"No, sir," Tanith replied, her back straightening automatically.

"Now, where exactly is he?"

"In his office," Tanith replied.

"Then... why did you say he'd been called away?"

Tanith had the decency to blush. "Sleeping, sir."

"Sleeping?"

"Gods know, he needs it."

"Alright," Lenaux sighed. "But you'd better wake him up now. I need to speak to him and this _won't_ wait until eighteen."

"Yes, Chief Lenaux." Tanith pressed the call button and held it down for almost a minute before receiving a reply.

" _Huh?_ "

"Chief Lenaux to see you, Mr Quinn."

" _Mm? Righ', righ'. Sen' 'im in_."

"The Director will see you now," Tanith told Lenaux in her perkiest voice.

"Thank you, Miss Arden."

Kaise opened the door and stepped through quickly, unwilling to leave the door open and expose the Director to public view in his current state.

"I know, I know; I look terrible," Jonas said.

"You look _dreadful_ ," Lenaux amplified. "I don't begrudge you a little sleep, Jonas, but you have a whole secondary apartment behind your office. If you could at least sleep in there you wouldn't have keyboard marks on your face."

Jonas rubbed vigorously at his cheek, partially blotting out the impressions of the keys of his electrotype with a sore redness. "I didn't actually _plan_ this," he assured Lenaux. "How many appointments have I missed?" He glanced at the clock and then answered his own question. "Three. Just great."

"Dr Taighairm and Mr? Streith were here when I arrived. What was that about?"

Jonas groaned. "I'm not sorry to have dodged that bullet. I just informed them that they had been deselected from EF-1 and reassigned to Auxiliary Support. I doubt they were very happy."

"Civilians don't always deal well with frat regs," Lenaux agreed. "Was it necessary to bump them _both_ from the flagship team?"

"Would it have been better to bump one of them? At least this way they've still got each other."

"You're a romantic, but now we have to replace two members of EF-1 at short notice."

Jonas shrugged. "We'll ask Lance-Colonel Aaen to vet the standby personnel and maybe bump someone up from EF-2."

"You evidently have more faith in her than she has in you. Aaen has been complaining that you aren't up to leading the Group at the moment. She doesn't seem to want you out, but certainly she's pushing for you to take a forced break."

"Maybe she's right."

"I don't think so."

Jonas frowned. "Kaise?"

"Tai," Lenaux explained. "If you go on leave, Dr Cyr will take over as Acting Director and either Aaen or Tai will step into her office. I have every respect for Dr Cyr as an administrator and researcher, but she's uncertain in herself."

"Can you blame her?" Jonas asked. "She spent the best part of a year sharing her head with a snake."

"I don't blame her, but two strong individuals like Aaen and Tai could sway her in two weeks and you could well come back to a Group with its priorities shifted."

"And its corridors full of slave labour."

Lenaux raised an eyebrow.

"Tai came to see me again. He wants us to draft indentured workers to complete work on the facility."

"We could use the workforce."

Jonas shook his head. "Even if I could square it with my conscience, I doubt there are many qualified electrical engineers or xenotechnologists on Langara's varied indentured work schemes and community service programmes. We already employ most of the people qualified to work for us, not to mention the several thousand colonists we have getting the island's farms and industries up and running. I don't know what Tai thinks... "

"Jonas?"

"He wouldn't... " Jonas rummaged in his in-tray and dug out Tai's proposals. He flipped through, his hyperaware mind devouring the details that he had missed earlier.

"What is it?" Lenaux asked.

"I should have known. He wants to flood Amamos with indentured farm and factory labourers and send the colonists home."

Lenaux frowned. "Why? The Colony hardly costs us anything."

"But it will make the island self-sufficient," Jonas pointed out. "The last thing any of the national governments want is for the JRC or the SEG to slip any further from their control. I know you're stretched thin as it is, but you'd better increase security on the Colony."

"Will do," Lenaux agreed. "But meanwhile we also need to keep a closer eye on Aaen and Tai."

Jonas shook his head. "They're ambitious, but... "

"They keep going off the sensor grid," Lenaux insisted. "Their off-grid times match up as well; there's definitely something going on between them. I've never trusted Aaen," he added.

"I remember."

"You overrode my veto on her appointment."

"Yes, I remember, and I had my reasons. Her record since the incident has been impeccable and I think she's just what we need. Apart from that one lapse... "

"It was a hell of a lapse."

"And that's another reason why I want her onboard. George Hammond and Jack O'Neill were two of the best men I ever knew and that was partly _because_ they knew from personal experience, and regret, what happens when you decide that the end justifies the means."

Lenaux grunted doubtfully. "I don't like her taste in friends."

"Well, if she's spending time with Tai I can't argue with that. It _does_ have the marks of a conspiracy," Jonas admitted reluctantly. "It's like the Trust on Earth. We'll probably find that whoever is ultimately behind the disruption will have their claws into a dozen of our most trusted personnel." He sighed. "Alright, Kaise; it'll take a long time, but re-check _everyone_ ; look for anything that could possibly be used to blackmail any of them."

Lenaux groaned. "As though there's _anyone_ who _can't_ be blackmailed, if you put your mind to the task. But I'll get my people on it right away."

"And check the external communication logs as well," Jonas suggested. "No-one could organise a thing like this alone; there has to be considerable outside support. Find out who has been talking to someone on one of the mainlands – and if possible, _who_ they were talking to and on _which_ mainland – and we'll have our suspect."

Lenaux nodded. For a moment he looked despondent, but then he smiled. "With your permission, I'll bring Airman MacVeigh in to assist me. She knows the systems better than anyone on this planet."

"Good. Let me know as soon as you find anything. We're going to sink or swim on... " Jonas winced and held his stomach.

"I'll take care of it," Lenaux assured him. "You get some rest and give Miss Arden a little time off. Don't give Lance-Colonel Aaen the chance to push you out, even for a month."

Jonas chuckled. "Yes, Mom."

*

After their drink and the encounter with Gereth Stele, Louise and Kianna both felt somewhat subdued. Kianna offered a full tour of the Stargate Facility, but Louise was not in the mood and did not think that the other woman would have been in a fit state to show the Facility to best effect. Instead, Kianna took Louise to her suite in the guest quarters.

Louise gave a low whistle. "This is a sight better than the VIP rooms at Cheyenne," she noted.

"One of the great advantages of using a Goa'uld's palace as your HQ," Kianna explained. "We're as well protected here as if we had a mountain on top of us – in theory, anyway; we're having some teething troubles with the defences – but the architects' watchword was clearly luxury. We've even got the Sec Force barracks done up pretty well." She walked over to a small table and sat down. At a touch of her fingers on the surface, a holographic display shimmered into life and the table lit up beneath the veneer to show a Goa'uld keyboard.

"All mod cons," Louise noted, approvingly.

"Hmm?"

"Modern conveniences," Louise explained. "It means everything built in."

"Oh, quite," Kianna agreed, her fingers flying nimbly across the controls. "While it was hard won, Kelan's knowledge has been a great blessing to me in integrating _our_ systems and _your_ systems with the existing Goa'uld computers. Now, you can use this terminal to access some of the SEG files – the _non_ -secure ones, obviously – and bring yourself up to speed a little."

"Thank you," Louise replied.

Kianna smiled. "I'll stop by Jonas' office at about twenty hours and make sure he hasn't lost track of the time. As many times as he's missed appointments with the great and the good, he won't forget that he's having dinner with you, I'm sure" – Louise blushed at that – "but he _might_ forget that it's dinner time. I'll meet you for breakfast on the terrace in the mess tomorrow morning; I can give you the tour and you can tell me all the sordid details."

"Of dinner with _Jonas_?"

Kianna laughed as she rose to her feet. "Alright, probably not sordid, but still, you can tell me the details. You should reset your access code for the system," she added.

Louise nodded her understanding. "No regular words, no parents' birthdays; letters, numbers and use both cases. I know the drill."

"Okay then." Kianna smiled warmly. "Have a good evening and I'll see you in the morning."

"Same to you."

As the door closed behind Kianna, Louise flopped into the chair with an explosive exhalation. "God damnit," she growled. Louise liked to key herself up for big emotional outbursts and had spent hours revving herself up to hate Kianna Cyr. Instead, she felt bitterly sorry for the woman and even guilty for driving Gereth away by inadvertently bringing Kelan into the conversation in the bar.

Her suitcase had been brought up and Louise rummaged for her radio. Offworld protocol demanded that she bring it with her, but she had not felt it necessary to carry it around with her, any more than she had felt a need to wear her intar pistol on her hip. The armoury officer had scowled a little when she tucked the weapon into the case, but she _was_ on a diplomatic assignment and she had Molly – who might be a computer geek, but was still an airwoman – to protect her.

She switched on the radio and pressed the transmit switch. "Sierra Golf Tango 2 from Sierra Golf Tango 1," she said. "Are you there, Molly?"

The radio in her hand crackled and emitted a raucous laugh. " _Oh, sweetie. Radio protocol is just something that happens to other people, isn't it?_ "

"Sorry, SGT-2," Louise replied. She sounded chastened, but rolled her eyes as she said it.

" _And don't roll your eyes at me, SGT-1; the rules are there for a reason._ "

This time, Louise actually felt herself straighten up at Molly's stern tone and apparent omniscience. "Yes, Two."

The channel went dead. After a moment, the telephone on the table – which looked as though it were made of bakelite, or something very like it – began to ring. Gingerly, Louise picked it up.

"Hello?"

" _So what can I do you for, hon?_ " Molly asked.

"How did you know... "

" _Your number? Sweetie, I'm logged into the central mainframe here. Hey; I see Dr Cyr's given you an access account for the computerised files. You know, they really have taken to computerisation well._ "

"So you're busy then?" Louise asked.

" _You could say that._ "

"I just did. Never mind then; I just... I feel I need someone to talk to."

Louise could almost hear Molly's expression of sympathetic rage. " _That bitch_ ," she hissed.

"No!" Louise protested, anxious to cut Molly off before she did something horrendous and Nemesistic to Kianna's file space. "No, she was lovely. She was really sympathetic and totally into this other guy she knew before she got possessed."

" _So... not a threat?_ "

"No."

" _What a waste of good spleen_."

"Tell me about it. So, I need to adjust my attitude; thought it might help to talk things through, but... "

" _How're you fixed for dinner tonight?_ " Molly asked.

"I'm having dinner with Jonas," she replied, just a little smugly.

Molly snorted with laughter. " _And yet you were worried about the blonde? Honestly, Louise, for such a smart girl you sure don't have the brains you were born with sometimes._ "

"Thanks... I think." Louise grimaced. She had not expected sympathy from Molly, but then that was the point; Molly was an alarmingly frank woman and Louise had found this invaluable for cutting through self-pity. "How're you doing?" she added.

" _Considering someone told me yesterday that I was going on a callout to fix a hybrid computer system and, by the way, the client's on another_ planet _, I'm doing pretty good. You wanna catch up at breakfast, maybe?_ "

"Sure. Oh, I'm meeting Kianna on the terrace of the mess, maybe you can join us?"

" _Would that be the_ officers' _mess?_ "

Louise winced. "Sorry."

" _'S okay, hon. You and Dr Cyr have fun, but meet me in the commissary for lunch or I'll never be your friend again._ Unless _Jonas asks you to have lunch with him,_ " she added. " _Skip out on him after all this moping and you're just too dumb for me to bother with_."

Louise chuckled. "Thanks, Máire," she said, softly.

" _For what?_ " Molly asked, struck by the use of her proper name.

"For not indulging a mopey old so-and-so."

Molly laughed again. " _You're not old, honey. See you for lunch._ "

Feeling much better, Louise turned to face the computer. "Now, SEG central database: what do you have to tell me, I wonder?"

*

Molly hung up the phone and turned back to the Group Administrator, Miss Dilan Isato. Her name had caused Molly to imagine a Japanese woman, but in fact Isato looked as though she would have been more at home in New Delhi. She was a tall and sturdy woman who certainly looked as though she could carry the weight of an entire command on her shoulders. She spoke highly of Chief Lenaux and he had spoken well of her. If Molly knew anything of the way that a military base worked, then these two larger than life characters were the father and mother of the SEG; much like Senior Master Sergeant Siler and Master Sergeant Chiltern at the SGC.

"Is your friend alright?" Isato asked, with every sign of genuine concern.

"Aw, she's fine. She just gets a little fussy sometimes.  Louise is as bright as they come, but... Well, I think it's on account of her brains being a little overdeveloped she gets in these flusters. You work with this lot; you probably know the kind."

Isato nodded. "So much brains that there's no room for sense," she agreed. "But then, that's why the gods made administrators; or made adjutants, I believe is the military equivalent."

"Sergeants, where I come from, but it's the same idea," Molly agreed.

"But we're straying from the point. Run me through this process again."

Molly laughed. "You run _me_ through it," she replied. "You're a darn sight more familiar with this system and I'm a hardware gal anyway. We've been through it three times already, so you must know it better than me by now."

"I doubt that, Airman," Isato replied dryly, "but I shall make the attempt. Alright," she began, matching her actions to her words. "First I open the log files, but not using the regular access program."

"And why not?"

"Because the access program can be tampered with, if you have the clearance; log entries relabelled to conceal them with a false time or date or ID."

"So instead?"

Isato nodded. "So instead I open the raw data file using the primary file viewer and look at the core attributes of each log entry instead of the display labels. That way I can order the files according to those attributes."

"And what else does the raw data tell you?" Molly asked.

"Where the system was accessed from," Isato replied. "Terminal IDs, interface numbers, remote access details. That information can only be accessed through the primary viewer and can not be edited, so we know that it is accurate."

"Probably accurate," Molly corrected. "For a system to be utterly hack-proof it would have to be completely uneditable. That ain't gonna happen until we make a system that never falls over, seeing as how when the system does crash you gotta go in and poke around a little. And when I say you, I mean the sysadmin."

"And when they do make a system that never crashes?"

Molly shrugged. "They'd better make damn sure it's idiot proof as well, because there ain't no way anyone's getting a sysadmin to install something that'll make 'em redundant."

"How very true."

There was a knock at the door of the machine room and Isato switched the screen off before calling out: "Come in!"

The door opened and Chief Lenaux eased his heavy frame through. He closed the door behind him, heedless to the stuffy heat inside the machine room. "Any luck so far?"

"A little," Isato replied, "but nothing terribly informative."

"We're workin' on it," Molly amplified, "but mostly we've been finding our way round the system. Neither one of us is entirely familiar with the exact setup you got here. Things should start happening real soon though," she promised.

"Good," Lenaux replied, "because there's something else I need you to do for me while you're poking about in here."

"You need only name it," Isato assured him.

"I need a full audit of the communications logs and an itemised list of all outgoing comm. usage, broken down by departmental and individual access codes. Pay particular attention to log entries for Nastasi Tai and Leleth Aaen."

Molly frowned.

"Airman?"

"Nothing, sir," she assured him. "I think Miss Isato has got the hang of the system access logs, so I'll take a look at the comm. traffic for you. I can't promise anything before dinnertime, though."

"Just do the best you can; that's all I can ask."

"Yes, Sir."

"Something wrong?" Isato asked, when the Chief was gone.

Molly turned away and hunched over another terminal. "No," she mumbled.

"Airman?"

"No, Ma'am."

There was a pause. "Máire?"

Molly pushed her shoulders up higher, as though she could hide behind herself and go completely unnoticed. The sense of Isato's gaze on her back was inescapable, however, and eventually she had to turn to look at her.

"What's wrong, Máire?"

"I'm a senior airman," Molly explained. "I'm good at my job, but I'm just a senior airman and... and I'm above the zone," she admitted, blushing. "This isn't a routine system security audit, it's a mole hunt and I'm not qualified... You should contact the SGC; ask for Master Sergeant Davis."

"Your superiors knew what we needed when they sent you," Isato assured her. "They must think you're up to the job."

"I don't know... "

"Then trust that they do. You _are_ good at your job, Senior Airman MacVeigh, so stop flustering, show a little of that common sense we both have so much of, and _do your job_."

Molly swallowed hard. "Yes, Ma'am."

*

_The Colony_

After the Assistant Director's warnings, Dr Kha was not sure if she was pleased to see Trooper Badon waiting for her on her return to the colony. Any protests or questions were forestalled, however, when she saw the state he was in.

"Rebus! What did they do to you?"

"What, this?" Rebus asked offhandedly. "At least he didn't catch me with his knife; that's thanks to you," he added.

"The man with the knife did this?"

"Him and some rocks. Don't worry; it looks worse than it really is." He smiled at her. "You're looking a little pale, and just when you were starting to get a nice tan."

Kha blushed.

"There's someone I'd like you to meet," he went on. "Come along to the comm. centre; I'll explain as we go along."

 

Senior Sergeant Lal was less than amused when Rebus put his proposition to her. "Have you gone stark, staring bonkers?" she asked in a furious hiss. "Did Gentle kick some of what passes for your brain loose?"

"Trust me," Rebus replied calmly.

"And why should I do that when you've brought a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth élite right to the door of the holiest of holies?"

"Because your tongue may be sharp, but you know I'm no idiot. Let me get her set up on the radio and I'll explain while she's talking."

"Why not explain now?"

Rebus smiled angelically. "Because I want to know that you trust me, Deva."

She narrowed her eyes. "You like living dangerously, don't you?"

"Yes I do," he agreed, but to sweeten the deal he produced another of his precious bars of Terranian chocolate and passed it to her. It was another half-week's pay given away, but he considered it an investment.

Lal slipped the bar inside her overall and then grinned as she passed him her key. "Set her up then," she said. "I'll be outside." As he turned back towards Kha she caught him by the sleeve. "Don't take too long, Trooper; I hate to be kept waiting."

Rebus ran Kha quickly through everything she needed to know, but she seemed quite capable of working most of it out for herself. "Now, your friend at the other end has a direct line?"

"Not as such," Kha admitted, "but she's the only one who ever answers the phone in the mortuary chapel."

"Your one friend in all the world works in the mortuary chapel?"

"She's more of a comrade than a friend, and I used to get sent there as punishment when I was little," Kha explained.

Rebus was incredulous. "What did _you_ get punished for?"

"Mostly sneaking about after lights out. I was always trying to get my work finished."

"Even when you're naughty you're conscientious," he laughed. "It's really adorable."

Kha blushed.

"Just knock on the door when you're done then. We'll be right outside." Even as he spoke, Rebus was backing away towards the door.

"Thank you!" Kha called, but he shushed her and left, closing the secret door behind him.

He left the closet and stepped into Lal's actual office across the corridor. According to the sign on the door, she was the maintenance coordinator. She sat behind a distinctly non-regulation desk with her feet propped up.

"There's a bottle of uisce in the filing cabinet. Be a good boy and bring it over."

"Where exactly?" Rebus asked as he walked over to the filing cabinet.

"Under U of course," Lal scoffed. "You're supposed to be the smart one, aren't you?"

"Of course." Rebus fetched out the bottle and eyed the label approvingly. "Glanvar; eleven years old. You do alright for yourself, Senior Sergeant."

Lal chuckled. "While we're drinking contraband uisce and discussing the black market possibilities offered by this outpost, I think we should abandon protocol, don't you Rebus?"

"With your permission, Deva," he agreed.

"Excellent." She swung her legs down and fetched two glasses out of her desk drawer. "Take a seat," she said, gesturing to a chair beside her own, "and pour that uisce."

Rebus did as he was told, which brought a superior smile to Lal's face. She was a woman who liked to be in control; he had known that when he chose to push her over the matter of Kha, but he had gambled that she would prefer to push someone who pushed back a little. The gamble seemed to have paid off.

Lal lifted her glass. "Here's to good business... and good friends."

"Cheers." In deference to Andari custom they did not clink glasses, instead, they each held out their glass for the other to drink from.

"So; talk to me about Miss Clean Knickers."

"Dr Kha is a very intelligent, very observant woman," Rebus explained.

"You missed off pretty."

Rebus laughed at that; he did not think there was any other safe response. "It's beside the point, anyway," he assured her. "The point is that Kha could burn a lot of perfectly good rackets if left unchecked."

"She's nothing!"

"She spotted Melko and Gentle last night," Rebus pointed out.

Lal snorted. "Well, that was a blessing in disguise. Three crates of uisce, two cases of Tulan cigars and a goodly supply of chocolate; that's what was supposed to be in those submersibles. I tell you, it's the last time I rely on Melko's contacts and _that_ is why I need you, assuming you can explain to me why bringing this oh-so intelligent and observant bit of lace into the heart of the operation is better than her stumbling over it. And I hope you're not going to suggest killing her, because I have Melko to come up with subtle plans like that. From you I expect something more." She broke off a piece of chocolate and popped it into her mouth. "And I don't just mean the chocolate."

"Of course." Rebus sat back and sipped his uisce meditatively.

"Rebus," Lal said dangerously.

"Yes, Deva?"

"I bore easily."

Rebus laughed. "Alright. It is better this way because Miss Clean Knickers – if you will – _is_ fearfully intelligent and, like so many smart people, is also rather dim. She's already accepted a gift of black market chocolate and now she's using an illegal transmitter patch. _If_ she ever realises that we're doing something illegal, she'll realise that she's implicated, and she won't tell because that would mean exposing herself."

"She could ask for amnesty."

"She doesn't know the game. She's barely been outside her cell for the last twenty-five years; she is naïve and foolish and, as of now, utterly within our power."

" _Our_ power?"

"Your power," he conceded. "Anyway, she won't go to the authorities _and_ we now have a handle on the sonar project leader, which could be very useful."

"Indeed it could," Lal agreed. She picked up the bottle and refilled their glasses. "Rebus Badon, I think that you and I could be very happy together."

"I think you may be right, Deva Lal."

"Here's to success."

*

_The Stargate Facility_

Louise skimmed over various reports and policy documents, detailing the approximate layout of the island – there was mention of several beautiful, sheltered beaches, she could not help noticing – and the Stargate Facility, as well as the mission charter of the SEG and the projected make-up of the various units of the Expeditionary Force. Everywhere in this documentation she saw Jonas's influence, from the broad policy statement – 'to explore by peaceful means, with a view to gaining access, by discovery or amicable and fair trade, to advanced technology which could be used to enhance the quality of life, scientific and cultural understanding or defensive capability of the planet Langara as an entity entire' – to the proposed composition of the field units.

With her experience of the Stargate Program, Louise had imagined that the Expeditionary Force units would have been composed of military personnel, assisted by a small number of civilian experts, as was the case with SG units. Instead, Jonas had chosen to select principally scientific and anthropological specialists for the teams and to provide a military escort for safety's sake.

EF-1, for example, the SEG's flagship first-contact unit, was to include a military team leader, Lance-Colonel Leleth Aaen; a physicist, astrophysicist and biochemist – overachievement seemed to be a Langaran trait – named Academician Élite Nastasi Tai; a diplomat named Streith; and an archaeologist named Taighairm. These four would be accompanied at need by a team of four Kelownan riflemen to provide protection, but the public face of the SEG in the wider universe would be three-quarters civilian and drawn from three nations.

"They must hate you so much for this, Jonas," she mused fondly.

A soft knock at the door drew her from her reverie. "Come in!" she called.

"I'm not interrupting am I?"

Louise almost leaped from her chair in delight. "Jonas! I wasn't expecting you for hours."

"It's almost twenty-one hours now," Jonas pointed out.

"Is it?" Louise looked at her watch, which was of course useless for telling the Langaran time. "I must have been distracted."

"It's easily done," Jonas teased.

"And what do you mean by that?"

"It used to happen all the time at the SGC. Amy used to have to drag you off to eat sometimes. I always tried to take over when she was offworld; I wouldn't have wanted you to waste away."

Louise felt a blush creeping up from her neck to the roots of her hair.

"Not that I dragged you anywhere," he added hurriedly.

"No. You used to bring me dinner on a tray," she recollected. "It was very sweet of you." _And also before Kianna_ , she reminded herself sternly, determined not to make a fool of herself.

"So... are you ready, or do you want a little time to wash up? Don't worry about the time," Jonas added. "I'm the Director, so they'll keep the kitchen open as long as I ask them to."

"I'll just... " Louise thought quickly; how clean would she need to be? On the one hand, Jonas was observant; fingernails would have to be scrubbed and all exposed skin at least rinsed. On the other, there wasn't the slightest chance of her losing any clothing on a first date with Jonas, so as long as she didn't stink, there was no need to go to town on anything that would be hidden. "I'll just have a quick shower," she finished. "Why don't you get yourself a drink – if there is anything to drink in the room, which I presume there is, but I haven't looked because I've been too busy reading up on SEG policy and my _God_ how sad is that?"

Jonas smiled. "I always liked that you were intense about your studies."

Louise squeaked.

"Louise?"

"Sorry. I meant to say thank you."

"There is a drinks cabinet," Jonas assured her. "I'll be fine; you get ready."

"Yes. I'll do that." Louise grabbed her bag and scampered into the bathroom.

Jonas shook his head and chuckled fondly. "Strange girl."

*

"Okay!" Molly said. "Well, that was a colossal waste of time."

"Oh?" Isato asked.

"Hmm. No, wait just a second there; looks like I spoke too soon."

Isato shifted her chair over so that she could sit beside Molly. "Show me?"

"Well, here're the entries for Academician Tai and Lance-Colonel Aaen," Molly explained, as lines of text flickered onto her screen. "That's the good-looking black gal I saw in the Chief's office?"

"Sounds like her."

"And she's in charge of your top field team?"

"Yes she is."

"You go grrl!" Molly exclaimed.

"Is there a problem, Airman?"

Molly laughed. "Far from it, Miss Isato. I just like to see a sister get ahead. Erm, I mean 'sister' in the feminist way; blonde girl not claiming ethnic fellowship or nothing."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Anyway, I'm glad to say that there's nothing to show anything against her here," Molly assured her. "Look; she hardly talks to _anyone_ at home. If I cross-reference the codes to the main directory, we can see she makes occasional calls to her father and regular reports to Andari High Command, but that's all. Poor cow."

"It does seem to clear her though," Isato pointed out.

"Yes, but everyone should have someone to come home to. I just think it's sad."

Isato sighed. "Your compassion does you credit, but can we stick to business."

"Oh sure; sorry. So here's Tai's records and again, nothing unusual. Daily reports... _Long_ reports to the priors of his... He's a monk?"

"He's one of the élite," Isato explained. "They all train in cloisters, not just the religious ones."

"Celibate?"

"Except as ordered."

Molly turned to stare at Isato. "Ordered? They get told who to sleep with?"

"They have a programme."

"Ick. Suddenly Lance-Colonel Aaen's life doesn't seem so bad. But, back on track, no unusual radio activity – I'll rephrase that – no unusual comm. activity from the Academician either. Or radioactivity, one presumes. In fact, there's only _one_ person whose comm. access has been notably high." Molly tapped out a few more commands and a different comm. log appeared. This one was far longer than the other two put together.

"Dr Stele?" Isato asked, astonished.

"Dozens of calls to this one number," Molly pointed out.

"It could just be personal business. Maybe Dr Stele _does_ have someone to go home to."

"Perhaps," Molly allowed, "but look at the times, the log-in IDs and the directory listing. He's spending two-to-three hours every other night accessing the comm. circuits from a remote terminal to call a bakery in Kelowna. How is that not suspicious?"

"It _is_ suspicious," Isato agreed, "but not proof. Unfortunately, there's hardly anything in the access logs. A few traces of unauthorised access, but nothing that we could be sure is more than just sloppy procedure."

Molly clicked her tongue thoughtfully. "Let me look," she suggested.

They went back to Isato's terminal and Molly scanned the screen for a long moment. Then, to the administrator's surprise, she switched the terminal off and then back on again.

"What are you doing?" Isato demanded.

"BIOS."

"I beg your pardon."

"Hardware," Molly replied. "Now, I like hardware, but I freely accept that it's useless without anything to run on it. In order to run a program, the computer has to read the necessary instructions, from a disk or from a keyboard input. The BIOS – the basic input/output system – tells the computer _how_ to read those instructions and how to display the results. It's the heart of the machine and it's built into a ROM chip on the motherboard of each of these computers we gave you."

"Sold us," Isato corrected.

"Sold you," Molly allowed.

In response to Molly's expert keystrokes, the screen turned blue and a menu appeared in white text. A few more strokes and the screen went to black and the computer finished booting up. Molly opened the access logs. "Strike," she said with quiet triumph.

Isato stared in amazement. "What did you do?" she demanded. "There are _twice_ as many entries now. Where did they all come from?"

"As I say," Molly explained, "the raw data _can_ be fiddled – or deleted – if you know what you're doing. Clearly your intruder knew _exactly_ what they were doing." Her fingers flew across the keyboard and a number of entries were highlighted in red. Then the other entries disappeared. "All of these were removed; deleted from the main access log by someone who really knew their way around this system."

"Then how did you find them again?" Isato asked.

"I'm better than they are," Molly replied defensively.

"Uh-huh."

Molly sighed. "There's an extra layer of monitoring software stored on the same chip as the BIOS," she admitted. "Impossible to access unless you know it's there. All those problems you've been having with the disk space... "

"How did you know... ?"

"The monitors record a second copy of _every_ log entry. Cripples your drive allocations, but creates an all-but indelible record of everything that happens on the system."

"You spied on us?"

Molly laughed lightly. "Honey, we spy on everyone." The access records scrolled past and Molly grew serious. "Good thing, too."

Isato turned to face the screen. "What?"

"Secure file access," Molly explained. "Whoever your mystery hacker is, they've been pulling all the records on Anubis, Osiris, Ba'al... trying to find the scoop on all the biggest black hats. And the address database."

"They've been looking up Stargate addresses?"

"Nuh-uh; deleting them. Making planets disappear."

"Why?" Isato wondered aloud.

"Good question. We've only got file names here; I'll send those back to the SGC and we can find out what's missing. If we get lucky, _what_ will tell us _why_."

Isato clamped a hand on Molly's shoulder. "You really are good at your job," she said approvingly.

"I should be after so long."

Isato gave a kind smile. "What does 'above the zone' mean?"

"It... How... ?"

"You mentioned it earlier. You seemed to think it meant you weren't good enough."

Molly blushed. "It means I've been doing my job for too long," she explained. "I should have been promoted to staff sergeant already, but I haven't. Give it a few more months and I'll have to resign."

"Why?"

"Because there's no place in the Air Force for those as think they're good enough. You gotta keep moving forward or you gotta move out."

"And you think you're good enough?" Isato sounded doubtful.

"I'm good at my job," Molly repeated. "But being a staff sergeant isn't my job. If I make staff sergeant, it stops being technical and I have to start training other people and leading teams and... I'm not good at that."

"You did alright with me," Isato assured her.

"It's not... "

Isato looked at her hard. "And scanning through access logs has nothing to do with leading teams, either."

Molly squirmed under the gimlet gaze of those dark eyes. "I don't know what you mean."

"Why didn't you want to be the one to audit the logs?" Isato pressed. "Why didn't you take the access logs, when you know about your extra monitors and I didn't?"

"I... I was worried I might screw up," Molly admitted.

"And that there'd be no one to catch you if you fell."

"Yes."

Isato patted Molly on the shoulder again. "But you didn't fall," she pointed out. "More than that, when I did, you were there to catch me."

Molly shook her head. "I didn't... "

"You did. You think about that, Máire... "

"Molly."

Isato gave her a quizzical look.

"People call me Molly."

The administrator nodded. "Well, Molly; you think about that while I go and fetch the Chief. And when you go home, you might feel differently about what your job is." Her eyes caught Molly's gaze and held it fast. "After all; if you've fallen down even once, you owe it to whoever caught you then to keep going, and to catch a few people who are falling in their turn."

"I didn't realise you were a philosopher."

"I'm an administrator," Isato replied with a wink. "The philosophy comes free."

*

Louise hadn't dared hope for a private dinner with Jonas, so the smart clothes she had packed were more suited to a formal banquet than an intimate tête-à-tête. Still, she looked pretty good in the black trouser suit and white silk shirt and she could hardly remember her appearance ever making such an impact on Jonas before.

"Louise," he said softly.

"Jonas," she replied, with greater composure than she felt.

"You look good," he replied.

She tried to smile sweetly, but had a feeling she might be grinning like an idiot. "Thanks," she said.

With a smile, he turned and offered her his arm. She didn't need a second invitation, but as she laid her hand at his elbow she could almost feel his bones.

"Are you alright?" she asked him.

"I feel better right now than I have for a while," he replied.

Louise swallowed hard.

"We can walk through the reception hall," Jonas suggested. "It's pretty impressive; Thanos certainly liked his luxuries."

All in all, Louise had to agree that, as with its recreational facilities and guest quarters, the SEG scored over the SGC on reception areas. The overblown grandeur of the Goa'uld had been toned down with the removal of a few statues and the use of a few muting tones in paintwork and carpeting to produce something that was moderately awe-inspiring without straying into the realms of the kitsch or the ridiculous. In fact, the average first time visitor to Langara would probably be considerably more impressed with the planet than those who visited Earth. The SGC might have superior weapons, computers and offworld experience, but in terms of style they were sorely lacking.

Jonas seemed pleased when she mentioned this.

"It was one of the reasons for choosing the location," he admitted. "I mean, some way down the list below the neutral location, the defences, the power systems, the existing facilities, farmland, industrial infrastructure and fishing, but it was on the list."

"What? 'If we put our base here we will look all cool and stuff'?"

"It's in the initial proposal," Jonas assured her. "Word for word. I mean, apart from 'and stuff'; that would just be ridiculous."

Louise slapped him playfully on the arm. "Beast."

He grinned at her, the big, honest grin she loved so much. "I've missed you, Louise," he told her. "I've missed a lot of people from the SGC, but none as much as you. Not quite," he added, with a devilish wink that failed to take the sweetness from the compliment.

"I... I've missed you too," she replied.

It sounded lame and she wanted to say more. She wanted to say 'I've missed you like there was a hole in my chest', but at that moment he led the way into a spacious apartment and Louise saw a redhead waiting for them with an eager expression. The woman might, Louise felt, be charitably described as pretty.

"Still here, Tanith?" Jonas asked. He sounded worried.

"Just thought I should check if you needed anything else, sir," the young woman replied. She was in fact, Louise decided, very pretty. The fact that she called Jonas 'sir' instead of 'sweetheart' added considerably to her looks and also took about a decade off Louise's estimate of her age.

"No, thank you," Jonas assured her. "You can go. I'm sorry; I should have said before I left."

"You did, sir," the girl assured him. "I just wanted to be sure."

"Oh; Miss Arden, this is Miss Louise Stillwell, our visiting anthropologist from the SGC; Louise, this is my secretary, Tanith Arden."

"Delighted," Louise said, shaking Miss Arden – 'Miss Arden', not 'Tanith'; that was another good sign – by the hand.

"Likewise. I've heard so much about you." Arden gave a dazzling smile and half turned to encompass them both. "Goodnight, Mr Quinn; Miss Stillwell. I'll be right next door if you need anything."

"She sleeps next door?" Louise asked archly. "Is that in case you need any late-night dictation?"

Jonas laughed, but his eyes stayed serious. "Actually, Tanith is my bodyguard as much as my secretary. Don't get me wrong, she's a very good typist, but she was also commended several times during her brief service with the Andari Dragoons."

"And what made her briefs so serviceable? I mean her service so brief?"

Jonas grinned again. "She was cashiered for insubordination, but the Chief seems to feel she didn't deserve it. I haven't asked," he added. "Officially I don't know that she's my bodyguard and I don't think she realises I've noticed the pistol she carries under her jacket. She's rather proud of her act... "

"And rightly so," Louise assured him.

"... and I'd hate to upset her."

"You're so sweet," she teased. She grinned at him and he grinned back, but then she tore her eyes away to take a good, long look at Jonas' apartment.

It was huge; this main room alone could have held her entire apartment _and_ Molly's and probably had space for Sindy's as well if it had been cut up and shoved into the alcoves. The walls were white-plastered and decorated with rich friezes of nymphs and satyrs doing unmentionable things to each other, most of which had been tastefully covered with cloth hangings. A triple-arched bay window opened onto a balcony which looked out over the sea, glittering darkly under the moonlight. The furnishings were comfortable, but not opulent; clearly they were not original.

It was incredible, but it was also... Jonas. There was a hominess and a distracted clutter that made it his own. Papers left where they lay, a jacket lying across the back of a priceless marble horse. Artefacts and statuettes which she remembered from his office at the SGC had been placed around the room, sometimes complimenting and sometimes clashing with the existing decor. Louise loved the place at once.

"Are you hungry?" Jonas asked.

"Starving."

"Then let's eat."

*

_The Colony_

Dr Kha was feeling rather disorientated. Prior to her rather surprising appointment to the SEG, she had met a grand total of five men in her entire life: a prior from a nearby monastery who had come to the convent to lecture on physics during a time when the convent had had no qualified prioress in that field; the divisional professor who had inspected the convent twice a year; a young lector and his student who had visited for a week to reference the hydrodynamics collection of the convent library; and, although she could not remember it, her own father, who would have been allowed to see her once before she was taken into the care of the convent. None of those men had been remotely like Rebus Badon, but then none of the many women she had met were remotely like Deva Lal.

Her life had prepared her to be a scientist. She was hailed as one of the most brilliant hydrodynamicists of her age, the head of her class in a convent renowned for hydrodynamic studies. Her work on isotopic decay, electromagnetic field variance, advanced spatial mathematics and catastrophe theory had been mere sidelines to her, but they had still caught the attention of the Kelownan scientists who developed the naquadria bomb – a fact that she had learned with some distress after that bomb was used to kill half-a-million of her own people – and later brought the offer of a place on Amamos. She was a good scientist; a _brilliant_ scientist and a true polymath. She could fathom the secrets of the universe and predict the life-cycle of the heavens, but she was utterly unequipped to deal with the likes of Rebus Badon and Deva Lal.

Rebus had baffled her completely. She had thought of him as a friend, even after Assistant Director Lenaux's warning, and he had seemed to prove it, but if he was the man she thought he was, why was he dining with Lal? Why had Lal asked him to dinner in the first place?

Of course, she understood at a crude level what the reasons might be. She was not utterly naïve – she had always known why Prior Mathis spent an hour in the Mother Prioress's chambers after each lecture and had not been untouched by the disquieting effect that Lector De'ath had brought to the convent – but if even she could see that Lal and Rebus were using each other, surely _they_ must know? And if they each knew that the other was using sex only to blind and manipulate them, then why do it?

Was it even possible to do it in Rebus's battered state?

And why did she care?

"I miss the convent," she sighed as she let herself into the Colony's computer centre. "Things were so much simpler then."

"Good evening, Dr Kha," the administrator called cheerfully.

"Good evening," she returned, feeling fearfully awkward. He knew her name, but she could not for the life of her recall his. She was sure that they had never been introduced and her memory was usually so good.

"Lek Yayl," he said, sensing her distress. He held out a hand. "We haven't been introduced, but you're quite a celebrity. We don't have many of the élite down on the Colony, apart from the farm managers."

"Charmed," she assured him, shaking the proffered hand. He was a small, clammy man with bulging eyes and a scruffy beard. He looked odd, but she felt that she understood him; he was more devoted to the machines that surrounded him than to any person. "I need to use one of the hybrid stations," she explained.

"Of course, Dr Kha," he agreed. "Right this way."

"I need to... oh. Yes, thank you." She was rather taken aback, having expected to be questioned regarding her needs and authorisation.

"Always happy to help out the élite," Yayl explained. He opened a door and ushered her through with a florid gesture. "Madam's worskstation awaits." The door led to a small cubicle, with a desk and chair and one of the computers that had been created for the project from a mixture of Langaran, Terrestrial and Goa'uld technology.

"Thank you," she said. "It's very kind of you. Um... The work that I have to do is a little sensitive," she offered.

"Say no more, I shall be happy to leave you to your work. Have you used the system before?"

"Oh, yes; I've got one of the machines in my quarters and... "

"Not the machines," he interrupted. "The system. The Colony core?"

"Oh. No; just my own machine."

Yayl tapped a card pinned to one wall. "Use this user name and password when prompted, then the system will prompt you for your clearance code before it lets you create an account."

"An account?" she asked, confused.

"Yes; the system holds your details, and a password that only you know. Every time you access the system after that, it knows who you are, so no-one else can do anything naughty while pretending to be you."

"I see. Well, that's good to know," Kha said. She could feel sweat prickling along her brow.

"If you get too hot, there's a vent on the wall there," Yayl added. "There's a bolt on the inside of the door if you want it and don't forget to sign out of the system when you're finished."

"Yes. Thank you." Her mouth was dry and she was sure that Yayl would become suspicious, but all he did was smile and close the door, leaving her alone in the cubicle. She practically leaped to the door and slammed the bolt closed.

Sitting at the computer, she followed Yayl's instructions, creating an account for herself before accessing the system. She was a little worried about this, but she reminded herself that she was not doing anything illegal.

Once she had access, Kha looked at the sockets in the front of the workstation. There was a wide slot for magnetic tape, a narrow one for magnetic disks and a small, round hole for the data crystals used by the Goa'uld. She took a crystal from her pocket and slotted it into the last of the ports. After a moment, a message appeared on the screen.

 _Data unreadable_.

So, it was encrypted. Well, that was no surprise and Kha was prepared for it. She slipped a magnetic disk from her pocket and slotted it into place. The disk contained one of her own programs; a rather brilliantly simple piece of mathematical design that cracked codes by trying hundreds of options per second. It was a toy really, and would not have done well against a sophisticated cipher; not on her own computer, anyway. Here, however, it had a lot more power to play with.

Kha loaded the program onto the core, the network of supercomputers at the heart of the Colony's system. Using her élite clearance, which her people had bargained so hard for, she overrode the priorities of every other active program. As Yayl had noted, there were no other scientific élite in the Colony, which gave her priority access over everyone.

With the entire core at its disposal, Kha took her program and let it loose on the encrypted data. This done, she sat back to wait and tried to puzzle out the mystery that was Rebus Badon.

*

_The Stargate Facility_

Lenaux looked deeply concerned when he returned to the computer room and Isato seemed to be working to allay some of his fears.

"... course they aren't. The monitoring software is for reasons of system security; I'm sure it must be in the manual somewhere."

Lenaux strode to the terminal and bent over, studying the figures. Molly pushed herself back and mouthed to Isato: "Thank you."

Isato winked at her again.

"This is serious," Lenaux said. " _Very_ serious."

"It gets worse," Molly told him.

He turned his heavy head towards her. "Explain."

"Well, the BIOS and the user interface are ours; Earth designed, I mean."

"What is it the Director calls it?" Lenaux asked Isato. "Good old American know-how?"

Molly gave a short laugh. "While I figure he may be poking fun at Uncle Sam, in this case the work was done in Cambridge, England."

"Good old Englandan know-how?"

"A lot of the know-how – or at least money – is still American," she assured him, "but anyway, the point is we built that and used it to fix a Langaran keyboard on top of what is, fundamentally, an alien system. Not that they told us that when we were working on it," she added.

"So?"

"So, if your hardware is alien, your software is alien. To hack the raw data files and hide the system logs, they guy who cracked the system here has to be pretty handy with Goa'uld technology. Someone who's studied the Goa'uld a lot... "

"But that would mean Director Quinn," Lenaux realised.

"... or an actual Goa'uld," Molly finished. "Now, I've only known what a Goa'uld is for about seventeen hours, but it's my understanding that they get inside your brain and make you go bad. Right?"

"More or less," Lenaux agreed.

"But they still know everything that you knew?"

"So I understand."

"Not Quinn, then. He spent days in the shop, taking computers apart, learning how they worked. He knows how we work; he'd check the BIOS for a carbon protocol like this one."

"Damn, damn, damn," Lenaux muttered. "Good work, Airman," he said. "You and Miss Isato get all of this printed out and the hard copy safely locked away somewhere. I'll lock down the base."

*

Louise let herself sink into the soft cushions of Jonas's couch and laid a hand on her gloriously full stomach. "What I don't understand," she admitted, "is how you've let yourself get so thin if you're eating as much as you did tonight."

"Well, tonight was a special occasion," Jonas reminded her. He handed her a glass of something not utterly dissimilar to brandy and raised a second glass to toast.

"Cheers," she said.

"Cheers," he replied. "Anyway, I didn't eat that much." Even as he spoke, however, Jonas winced and gripped his side.

Louise bit back a snort of laughter. "Sure about that?"

"Not so much," he admitted with a grimace, but he laughed as well and sat down beside her. Close beside her.

"How are you doing?" Louise asked.

Jonas shrugged. "Up and down. I think stress probably has a lot to do with my weight loss and my indigestion, actually."

"Poor you." Louise took a chance and slipped her hand into his. He made no move to withdraw. "And... Kianna?"

"It's very sad," he replied. "I feel a little guilty, although I know it was Kelan's fault really. I bent the rules a little to get Dr Stele involved; I guess that was my way of trying to make things right."

Louise shook her head. "You take too much on yourself and it's starting to show." She set her glass down and reached to touch his face with her free hand.

Jonas turned towards her.

"Jonas," Louise began. Her voice was very quiet, as though she hoped he might not hear her. She cleared her throat and began again, more loudly this time. "Jonas. You know I'm crazy about you, don't you?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Only... sometimes you didn't really seem to notice."

"I notice," he whispered. "I always noticed. I just... It didn't seem right, knowing I might have to come home any day and leave you behind."

"I would have come with you."

Jonas reached across Louise and put his glass down beside hers. The movement brought his face close to hers and he did not take it away again. "And here I am, back home... and now you're here. It seems there's no getting away from you."

She swallowed hard. "And how does that make you feel?" she asked.

"Happy," he replied.

Louise felt her heart flutter madly in her chest. She leaned forward and kissed him, closing her eyes as their lips met. She felt his hand slide through her hair and he pressed his mouth against hers with a ferocity that startled her and...

And then the alarm went off.

For a moment, Jonas did not seem to hear the klaxon. He pushed his body against Louise, pressing her back into the couch, but she gave a muffled cry of protest and squirmed away from him. Her eyes were open now and she saw, for a moment, a flash of rage in his gaze.

"The alarms! What is it?" she demanded, suddenly afraid; afraid of him.

Jonas shook his head as though he were confused or dizzy. When he looked back at her that anger was not merely gone, it had vanished so totally that she could not believe that it had ever been there; not in his eyes. Not Jonas.

"That's a lockdown alert," Jonas realised. "We've got to find Chief Lenaux. Come on, Louise; stick close to me."

"Sure," she agreed uncertainly.

Jonas looked at her, his eyes brimming with concern and compassion. "Are you alright?"

"I... I'm fine," she assured him. "I'm sure everything's fine."

To prove it to herself as much as to him, she took his hand again. He smiled at her, squeezed her fingers gently... and let her hand fall again. She stared in amazement as he walked to the door. He was as he had always been; Jonas Quinn, reserved, polite and distant. It was as though they had never kissed.

"Jonas?"

He turned back towards her. "Louise?"

"Nothing," she assured him. "Just... just my imagination."

*

Gereth and his staff had finally managed to get the infirmary into some sort of order and he was beginning to relax when Chief Lenaux charged in and sent everything into uproar again with his demands.

"CAT scans?" he demanded incredulously. "But there are a thousand personnel and only one scanner! And only Dr Thien has any idea how to use it."

"Then I'll send three men to escort Dr Thien... "

"Lucky thing," one of the nurses commented.

"... and we'd better get started right away. Power up the scanner and get yourself ready."

"Myself?" Gereth asked, alarmed.

Lenaux nodded. "You'll be supervising the scans, so we have to know that you are sound."

"Sound?"

"Dr Thien tests you first, then me. Then, if we are clear... "

"Clear?"

"... we summon the other senior staff, beginning with Dr Cyr."

"Kianna?"

"Dr Stele," Lenaux said patiently, "would you care to assay answers of more than one word?"

"Sorry," Gereth replied, "but you're being very mysterious and I'm not sure what else to say."

Lenaux sighed. "Look. The reason that the SGC gave us the scanner was to check our personnel for Goa'uld possession; what do you imagine I want you to scan everyone for?"

"But that was field personnel. We haven't had anyone in the field yet!"

"Nonetheless, we have a Goa'uld on base," Lenaux assured him. "Get that scanner ready."

 

Master Physician Élite Dr Teli Thien operated the CAT scanner with skilled, but unfamiliar actions. Gereth looked up at the screen and watched as an image appeared.

"Is that what Chief Lenaux's brain looks like?" he asked.

"It's much the same as your brain," Thien assured him. She pointed to the image with one long, delicate finger. "Same image, same... oh."

"Is it... Is it a Goa'uld?" Gereth moved closer to the screen. He was fascinated with this new technology and in his eagerness to see more he pressed against his colleague without even realising he was doing it. With a Kelownan doctor it would hardly have mattered – in their intern year, all new doctors would spend a good thirty percent of their time in a huddle of bodies around a monitor. Teli Thien, however, was one of the élite.

Thien turned her face towards him and then moved away with a deliberate motion. Only when she had put a distance that she was comfortable with between herself and Gereth did she shake her head. "No Goa'uld," she said. "It's a canker."

 

The discovery of Chief Lenaux's canker preyed on Gereth's mind. The Chief himself had taken it well, with some help from the solicitous Dr Thien. It was an almost comical sight; the big, solid man sitting in stoic silence, while Thien, tall, but slim and somehow childlike with her androgynous figure and slightly oversized head, held his hand. Evidently, she had no difficulty with proximity to a man if he were sick.

"Dr Cyr will be here shortly," Gereth pointed out at last. "You should probably get dressed, Chief."

"Hmm."

"Chief?"

Lenaux sighed. "The last ten years I haven't really been living, just... existing. It figures I'd get sick as soon as I find something worth doing."

"You're not done for yet," Thien assured him.

Gereth nodded his agreement. "There are many options, but we can discuss those later. For now, you need to be dressed when Kia... Dr Cyr arrives."

"Of course," Lenaux agreed. "Thank you, Doctors." He stood up and walked through to the next room.

"Brave man," Gereth murmured.

" _Is_ there anything to be done?" Thien asked. "The canker is deep in the brain... "

"There is a chance. The Tau'ri have techniques which could help, although I'm sure that the Council would be unhappy with us asking for yet more assistance from offworld." He looked at his second in command, thoughtfully. "I wouldn't have thought that you had such a good bedside manner," he noted.

"I am well-trained in all areas of practice," Thien assured him. "Not all of the medical élite are cold-hearted surgeons."

"I didn't mean... "

Thien smiled. "I know."

Gereth heard a soft knock and turned to see Kianna standing in the doorway. She was watching the two doctors with a suspicious gaze and he felt a surge of resentment. While the idea that he might be flirting with Thien was ludicrous, his pride insisted that Kianna would have no right to criticise if he did.

"Dr Cyr," he said. "Prep room two; you need to change into a surgical gown."

"Yes, Dr Stele," she replied, coolly.

Lenaux emerged from prep room one even as Kianna went into two. He had changed back into his fatigues and showed no sign of frailty. "Was that Dr Cyr?" he asked.

"Indeed," Thien acknowledged.

"I have one question I need to ask you, Dr Stele," Lenaux admitted, "although I didn't want to ask until I was sure you weren't infested. Dr Thien, if we could have a moment?"

Thien nodded. "I'll check the calibration," she agreed.

"Dr Stele, you've been using your directorial access to make a lot of long-distance calls of late," Lenaux said. "Can you tell me why?"

Gereth closed his eyes and sighed. "It's... personal," he replied.

"And I would accept that in ordinary circumstances, but I hope you understand that I need a little more in the present climate."

Gereth nodded reluctantly. "I've been calling my sister. Our parents died several years ago and we've been very close ever since," he explained. "I always call her up when I'm feeling low and I... I've been feeling rather low of late. With all the pressure and... " His eyes flickered towards the door of prep room two. "... things."

"Hmm."

"You know, you can overdo laconic."

A smile twitched at the corner of Lenaux's mouth. "Hmm."

"Why did you want Kianna in first?" Gereth added.

"Because she is known to have been infested before and the removal of Goa'uld symbiotes is, I am told, not a precise art. We just need to make sure."

"She'll know what we're looking for," Gereth noted.

Lenaux shrugged. "I don't much care. If we don't get anyone in the senior staff I'll test everyone on the base, however unpopular it makes me. I suppose I don't have to worry about having my assignment renewed now."

"Don't be so negative. You're far from... " Gereth broke off as Kianna returned. This would not have been for her ears, even before Kelan had come between them. The thought that Kelan might still be controlling Kianna made Gereth's blood run cold, but he could not be sure whether he was concerned for Kianna or simply afraid of the Goa'uld.

"Lie down on the bed," he ordered.

Kianna complied. "That takes me back," she quipped, but he could see from her face that she regretted it at once. Nonetheless, he felt the same pang of painful memory that caused him to wince.

"Will it hurt?" she asked in a whisper.

She looked around as she spoke and he realised that she did not want anyone else to know that she was afraid. Unwilling to humiliate her unnecessarily, he whispered back as he fitted wax plugs into her ears: "Not a bit; I promise. It gets a little close in there," he added. "If you start to feel claustrophobic, look above you, out of the tunnel."

Kianna forced a grin. "I can cope with enclosed spaces," she assured him.

"Of course you can."

She reached up and caught his hand. "Do you believe she's still controlling me?" she whispered.

Gereth looked into her eyes. Since he had discovered the truth, he had convinced himself that he had seen a change in his fiancée from the first moment she was taken, a coldness that was alien to Kianna and first nature to Kelan. There was no sign of that coldness now, although he had enough psychological training to know that he could have been imagining the whole thing.

"No," he replied. "Just sit tight; it'll be over in a minute."

As the table slid into the CAT scanning tunnel, a new fear gripped Gereth. What if they found in Kianna's brain, not a Goa'uld, but a canker like the one nestling inside Lenaux's skull? Would that be any better?

*

_The Colony_

Rebus sauntered as best he was able away from the computer centre. Like so many black marketers – like Rebus himself in his day – the lovely Deva looked after herself. If she had been able to see the menu that Deva was able to produce – Valerian bacon, fresh vegetables, cakes made with real eggs and butter, cane sugar, and all the other things that would have been taken for granted before rationing began – Dr Kha would not have questioned why he would agree to have dinner with anyone so dangerous and manipulative.

Despite clear invitations and the attractive prospects offered by spending the rest of the evening in Deva's quarters, Rebus had left after dinner, pleading evident infirmity. He had regrets, obviously, but aside from a need to move slowly and keep a cool head in any dealings with Deva Lal if he wanted to keep all of his major organs off the international market he was fairly sure that engaging in any form of intimate activity with such a forceful and energetic woman while suffering from three cracked ribs would be tantamount to suicide.

Rebus' wanderings led him by no particular route past the NCO dorms towards the storage huts. He seemed distracted; lost in thought and perhaps a little drunk. Anyone watching would have thought that he was moving without any destination in mind, but they would have been wrong. He knew exactly where he was going; he just did not want anyone else to know that.

The storehouse where he had been worked over by Lal's goon squad – at Deva's instigation, he had no doubt – stood silent and dark, but Rebus doubted whether it was empty. He had seen a folding bed in Melko's office, and as Melko had a perfectly good bunk in the dorms, there was only one thing he would want a folding bed for.

The storehouses worked well for secret hideouts because the walls were substantial enough to block out most sound. As a skilled black marketer, however, Rebus knew the weaknesses of every storehouse in use by just about every military on Langara and this one, for all its substantial walls, had weak foundations. The floors were thin and it was possible – if not easy – to break through the boards at the base of the outer walls without alerting anyone inside. Rebus did this and slid into the space under the floorboards.

As he had expected, Melko was still in his office, although with the lights out he was clearly not working. Thankfully, he was not making immediate use of the folding bed either. Rebus could hear his voice through the boards; from the absence of any answering voice, Rebus deduced that he was speaking on the telephone.

"Yes. Yes. Yes, I understand. Don't treat me like a damned fool. That was Lal's mistake."

Rebus closed his eyes. He liked Lal; she reminded him of himself before his arrest. He had rather hoped that she would prove less fallible. Her success felt like vindication of his own past and her failings reminded him of his own.

"It'll be done on time, just stop... Yes, _sir_. I understand. We're on our way now." There was a pause and when he spoke again it was clearly to somebody else. "Put your clothes on."

"But I just took them off," Gentle complained.

"Yeah, well; the boss wants the radar offline for two hours, starting in an hour's time."

"We've got an hour then."

"Get up."

"Why do you let him push you around like that?"

There was a crash as Gentle was shoved violently from the bed. Rebus saw her shadow block the light above him. He could see a faint gleam of reflected light in her eyes and he hoped that she could not see him. If she could, she made no sound.

"Bastard," she muttered.

"You going to do anything about it?" Melko challenged.

"No."

"Well, that's why I don't do anything about... him."

"You could've just _said_."

Melko grunted in response. Rebus knew that the honest answer would have been to admit that when his paymaster kicked him – and probably when Lal did the same – he took his frustration out on Gentle, but Melko wasn't that honest with himself, let alone his lover. They were a sad, pathetic pair, but no less dangerous for that. That was why Rebus waited for them to be dressed and gone before slipping out of his hiding place. They were out of sight by the time he emerged, but that did not matter much.

He knew where they were going, after all.

*

_The Stargate Facility_

Gereth stared at the image in front of him without really seeing it. He studied it in such minute detail that the whole of it quite escaped him.

"Dr Stele?" Thien asked, softly.

"Is it... Is it clear, Dr Thien?"

"Quite clear," she assured him. "A very healthy, very efficient brain."

Gereth gave a soft sigh of relief as he triggered the release and slid the bed out from the tunnel.

"All done," he told her.

"Are my teeth okay?" Kianna asked. She seemed slightly giddy with relief.

"Beautiful," he assured her. "I... I mean, fine," he corrected with a blush. "You can get dressed now. Who's next?"

"That'll be me."

Kianna looked surprised; trapped in the tunnel and surrounded by the thundering of the machine, she had not heard Jonas or Louise come in.

"Will you want to test me?" Louise asked, as Jonas walked towards prep room one.

"Best to be sure," Lenaux decided.

"You can change in room two with me," Kianna suggested. "If you're not shy?"

"Far from it," Louise assured her.

"They both seem in good spirits," Thien noted curiously.

"I wonder why?" Lenaux replied playfully. He glanced at Gereth and then winked at Thien behind his back. The élite looked blank, but thankfully the PA crackled before she could ask him to clarify.

" _Chief Lenaux; please contact the communications centre._ "

Lenaux walked to the intercom panel and keyed in his authorisation code and the number for the communications room. "Lenaux," he announced.

" _Chief Lenaux,_ " the comm. officer replied, " _there is an urgent call waiting for you._ "

"Give me some more details and define urgent."

" _The call has come from the Colony. The lady wouldn't give a name, but her precise words were 'life or death'._ "

"Redirect to my office in... six minutes," he ordered, estimating how long it would take him to reach the office.

" _Confirmed_."

Lenaux closed the circuit. "Dr Stele; there are two guards outside the door. I'll send them both in. If you do detect a Goa'uld, alert them before you pull the suspect out of the tunnel."

Gereth nodded. "I think that we can waive patient confidentiality if we find that there are _two_ patients under the scanner at once."

 

Lenaux settled at his desk and picked up his phone. He had taken a little over six minutes to reach the office and he could hear worried noises from the other end of the line.

"Lenaux," he announced.

There was a sob of relief. " _Oh, thank Artume._ "

"Dr Kha? What's the matter?"

" _I... unauthorised comm. centre... the log, I..._ "

"Slowly," Lenaux instructed. "Go slowly and tell me everything in order."

There followed the kind of silence which Lenaux always attributed to a person nodding or shaking their head, or making some other attempt to communicate their meaning through a gesture that was meaningless to a listener on the other end of a phone line. Just before he was about to speak again, Dr Kha started up.

" _There is a... a person in the Colony using an unauthorised patch to run an illegal comm. centre._ "

"What?" Lenaux was incredulous.

" _I was able to take a copy of the comm. log and decrypt it, and there's something that you need to know. The log shows long, one-way communications; someone transmitting to a relay and receiving no response._ "

A dozen questions darted through Lenaux's mind, but one of them rose above all of the others. "Who? Who made the transmissions?"

" _I... It is possible that the record was falsified by the sergeant who ran the operation, but..._ "

"Just give me a name, Dr Kha."

" _But it could be a mistake and I would not wish to..._ "

She continued to procrastinate, but Lenaux did not need to hear the name. He had heard that precise tone from Dr Kha before and he knew who caused it; the one man in the Group whom she held in awed reverence undue to his person. "Tai," he growled.

" _Well..._ "

"Where are you?"

" _In the computer core._ "

"I'll send a patrol to bring you in to the Facility," Lenaux said. "You just stay where you are and wait for them; I'll send Infantrywoman Peke; you know her from this morning."

" _Yes, Assistant Director._ "

"Thank you for your help, Dr Kha." Without further ado, Lenaux cut the circuit and opened a channel to the security centre. "This is Lenaux. I want Infantrywoman Peke and a security squad to bring Dr Eudora Kha from the Colony Core to my office under protective escort and I want to know where Nastasi Tai is right now."

*

_The Colony_

Elen Gentle dragged her feet as she followed Melko up the hill to the radar station. Melko was always going on about how Senior Sergeant Lal would regret not taking him seriously, but Gentle was starting to have similar feelings about her partner. He had always treated her badly, but worse than ever since coming to Amamos. Melko hated taking orders from his mysterious master, but more than that, he hated being second-fiddle in his chosen field to a _woman_. It was Gentle who suffered for these frustrations and she had just about had enough of it. She had always had difficulty finding lovers, but there was a limit to the price she was willing to pay.

"Right," Melko whispered. "This isn't going to be easy like the sonar... "

"And we made such a good job of that one."

"The radar operators will notice if we cut the relays, so we're going to have to do enough damage that it will take them two hours to repair it."

"They're not going to bomb the site are they?" Gentle asked warily.

"Don't be so stupid!" Melko snarled at her, with such an expression of disdain that she knew he had not even thought of it. "What would it benefit... _him_ to bomb the ground he's standing on?"

"Then what is he doing?"

"That isn't our concern!" Melko caught his voice rising and composed himself. "We just do as we're told."

"Since when? You're told not to steal things out of storehouses, but... "

The sound of the slap was disturbingly loud and Melko looked around in panic, his body hunched like a hunted animal. "You keep your mouth shut," he hissed. "Just follow me and keep silent."

Resentment seething in her breast like a flame, Gentle followed. Together, they crept up to the door of the relay room at the base of the radar tower. There were three back-ups in case of electrical failure, but the security arrangements were less than sophisticated. The radar tower was at the heart of the Colony and so it was considered safe.

"Don't look so sour," Melko sneered. "Once we get inside you can smash things to your heart's content." He gave a mocking laugh and chucked her under the chin. "I know how much you like hitting things."

"And people," she muttered at his retreating back. "I'll show you just how much I like hitting _people_ if you carry on like this." But she made sure that he did not hear her.

Melko crouched down by the lock and worked his picks in the tumblers. Gentle watched him resentfully; his cleverness and skill set him above her, as much as his rank. However useful he might find her facility for violence, that skill was ultimately replaceable, especially in the military.

The tumblers clicked and the door swung open. Melko looked up and saw a belt buckle right in front of his eyes. He started up and stepped back.

"Hello, Sergeant-at-Arms," said Senior Sergeant Lal. She stood in the doorway, smiling in triumph, with the rest of her group – the four who had helped Gentle to beat Trooper Badon and a dozen others that Gentle had never even met – ranged out behind her.

"I... " Melko began.

"Don't bother, Sergeant-at-Arms; I know why you're here."

Melko scowled. "Gentle!" he snapped.

Gentle tensed to attack, but immediately realised that there was not chance of winning this fight. Melko just wanted her to block the doorway while he ran for it. Despite her natural inclination and the impulse to obey, Gentle made up her own mind at last. She fled.

She ran down the hill as fast as her legs would carry her, but she had not escaped the furious yells and desperate, pleading cries of Sergeant-at-Arms Melko before something struck her over the back of the head and she fell stupefied to the ground.

 

Deva Lal swaggered down the hill to where Rebus stood over the prone form of Gentle.

"Not going to put the boot in?" she asked, looping an arm through his left, leaving the hand with the blackjack in it free.

"I'm tempted," he admitted, "but I'd probably do myself an injury. Anyway, the guards will have heard Melko blubbing; they'll be here soon."

Lal sighed. "This is going to be trouble."

Rebus shrugged. "Kind of a risk in our line of business," he admitted. "You'd better take your boys and get cleaned up."

"And you?"

"Who knows, maybe I can get a commendation and a shortening of my parole for thwarting an attempted sabotage. Anyway, someone needs to give a story before Melko comes around."

Lal nodded her head. She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his mouth. "Good luck, Trooper."

Rebus watched her and her crew depart. "And to you," he sighed. "And to you."

*

_The Stargate Facility_

The bed rolled out of the tunnel and Leleth sat up. "Satisfied?" she asked.

"All clear," Gereth confirmed. "That just leaves Academician Tai and then we start on the next echelon."

"Where is Tai?" Jonas asked, as he emerged from the prep room, dressed once more in his base fatigues. "He's running very late."

Leleth, half-way to her own prep room, frowned. "He's never late," she muttered to herself.

"So; how's my brain?" Jonas asked.

Dr Thien frowned. "There is some evidence of... it looks almost like scarring," she admitted.

"Yes," Jonas agreed. "I had to have an aberrant growth removed."

"A canker?" Stele asked, with more than idle curiosity in his tone.

Jonas shrugged. "Kind of. Actually it was a super-cerebral neurone cluster which allowed me a limited ability to foresee future events by analysing probabilities at a greatly enhanced rate."

"And was killing you," Louise added darkly.

"And that, yes," he agreed.

 

Leleth buttoned up her shirt and tucked it into the top of her battle dress trousers. She pulled on her jacket, but did not bother with her tie. She had a nagging worry that would not go away and in the end she opened the intercom circuit and asked for Chief Lenaux.

" _Chief Lenaux is not responding_ ," the communications officer replied.

"Not responding? Well, where is he?"

" _I'll have to put you through to the security office_."

"Then please do," Leleth snarled. She drummed her fingers impatiently on the wall while she waited for the connection.

" _Security office_."

"This is Aaen. I want a location for Chief Lenaux."

" _Chief Lenaux is in the main laboratory, Lance-Colonel_."

Leleth was surprised by the speed of the response. "How do you know?"

" _Because Chief Lenaux went to the laboratory to speak to Academician Tai ten minutes ago,_ " the young officer replied sniffily. " _He asked for two sec troopers to meet him there._ "

"Confirm location," Leleth ordered.

" _But..._ "

"Do it _now_!"

There was a pause, laden with resentment, before the officer spoke again. His dismissive tone was gone, replaced my incomprehension. " _I don't understand_ ," he admitted.

"Spare me the commentary and tell me where he is."

" _According to the system, the Chief is off the grid._ "

"And Nas... And Academician Tai?"

There was another pause, but shorter this time. " _Yes. The same_."

"Last recorded location?"

" _We don't keep a running record of..._ "

Leleth almost shrieked aloud in her impatience. "Chief Lenaux was keeping a record of my movements; he was keeping one of Nas... " She winced as she caught herself a second time. "Of Tai's movements as well. Now look at the records, _which you have on your screen right now_ and tell me where they went off the grid."

When the officer spoke again, there was a note of fear in his voice. Leleth was pleased by this; her mentor had once told her that it never hurt for a leader to have a reputation for omniscience.

" _Corridor C, Ma'am,_ " the officer said.

"Damnit."

" _Ma'am?_ "

"Send a medical team to the lab and I want a full sec team to meet me at the Hangar 3 subfloor hatch," she ordered. "I also need a marksman in place on the Hangar 3 external scaffold."

" _I would need Chief Lenaux's..._ "

"But he's off the grid, so you're not going to get it!" Leleth snapped. "Now, in his absence I am acting head of the Security Directorate and I am authorising the release of a Lizen-3GG and a riot gun from the armoury."

" _A riot gun?_ "

"Yes; that's for me. Now get on it, right now, or you'll spend the rest of your tour hoeing weeds on the Colony."

*

The subfloor of Hangar 3 was a network of crawlspaces beneath the deck plates, designed to allow the maintenance staff access to the undersides of gyrolift skids and fuselages without the use of elevators. They were also used for transporting machine parts and munitions across the hangar deck without getting in the way of the pilots as they took off and landed.

Nastasi Tai's interest in the subfloor was that it was off the sensor grid, but almost no-one knew it. He was close enough to several sensor posts to be detected, but the deck plates shielded the signal from his locator wristband. By simply dropping through an inspection hatch in Corridor C, he could vanish off the face of the sensors and make his way through the crawlspaces to one of the Goa'uld shuttles which served as personnel transports for the island. The shuttles had been salvaged from the equipment abandoned by Anubis' forces following the Dark God's forced retreat from Langara. With the mothership gone, many Jaffa had abandoned their suborbital landing craft in order to try, with varying degrees of success, to reach a barque or al'kesh, or even the Stargate; the Langarans had picked up the pieces.

Although crude by Goa'uld standards, the shuttles were the fastest vessels on Langara. Aboard one of those, Tai would have no fear of the air defence squadron in their gyrolifts and the island's missile batteries and ancient plasma guns could do no good so long as the radar was down. Tai knew that his escape was inevitable, and he had his insurance.

Of course, the insurance was currently proving burdensome. Kaise Lenaux was too big to be easily dragged through the crawlspaces and that was slowing Tai down. This did not really worry him – he would soon be far from here and no-one could see him in the crawl space, however slowly he moved – but it was deeply irritating.

"You couldn't have been smaller?" he demanded of the unconscious man.

At last he reached the hatch. He let go of Lenaux's leg and reached up to release and lift down the deck plate covering the opening. As he took the weight of the plate on his arms, Lenaux scrambled to his feet and caught him by the leg. Tai lost his balance and the plate fell, smashing down into the crawlspace with an almighty clang and narrowly missing Lenaux's body.

"Get off me!" Tai demanded.

"Not likely, Tai," Lenaux replied, weakly.

Tai reached down and caught Lenaux by the collar. With alarming strength he dragged the bigger man up from the floor of the crawlspace. "You have no idea who you're dealing with," he growled.

 

The security team met Leleth at the hatch. Their leader, Senior Trooper Linx, handed her a squat SF-5 riot gun, a bulky flak jacket and a tactical radio; another gift from the Tau'ri, no doubt intended to ensure that the SGC could listen in on the SEG if necessary. At her signal, they levered up the hatch and she bent down to listen. Almost at once she heard a reverberating clang.

"They're almost out. Quickly; the shuttles."

She led the squad at a jog across the hangar floor to the shuttles. She knew that the shuttles could be prepped and launched in less than a minute, which meant that there was no time to try and be subtle. She rounded the back of the nearest shuttle and saw Nastasi, standing by the floor hatch with a bruised and bloodied Lenaux held in an efficient hold. There was a pistol to the Security Chief's head.

"Back off!" Nastasi demanded. "If I hear one man come around behind me, I'll kill the chief."

Leleth thought fast. Nastasi was almost completely hidden behind Lenaux and, although the riot gun's electromagnetic charge would pass through the Chief and incapacitate both men, its first effect on Nastasi would be to send his peripheral nervous system into spasm; the pistol would fire, and Lenaux would almost certainly be killed.

"You heard him!" she snapped, adding in case anyone had not: "Back off and nobody try and come around the front." She lowered her own weapon.

"Good," he said. "Very good. Now, the Chief and I are going aboard. I am so glad I brought him now." He licked his lips. "Leleth, my dear, I think you should come with us."

"What?"

"What is there for you here but suspicion? I can offer you power, Leleth, and you know what else."

Leleth did not trust herself to answer for a moment; she was too afraid that she would say yes.

"Come with me, Leleth.

"Don't be a fool, Nastasi; they'll shoot you down." Leleth was keenly aware that she was avoiding the point.

"You can not shoot what you can not see and I think you will find that the radar is down."

"Think again," Leleth replied. "We just heard that a couple of goons were caught at the radar tower, _before_ they could do any harm."

"Curse their stupidity!" Tai spat. "But it doesn't matter. I have your Chief of Security and you won't fire on him."

"Yes... th'will," Lenaux gasped.

"Damn you, old man; you don't know when to lie still!"

"They will fire," Lenaux repeated. "You make sure they do, Aaen. Don' worry 'bout me. Ask Stele if it bothers you, but _stop him at any cost_."

Leleth wavered. "I... I don't know if I can."

"You must!"

"Silence!" Nastasi twisted Lenaux's arm savagely; Leleth could hardly stand to watch.

"Now," Nastasi growled. "You will order air defence to stand down or you'll find yourself promoted to Chief of Security."

Tears welled up in Leleth's eyes. "Alright," she whispered.

Nastasi grinned in triumph.

"Do it," Leleth finished.

The grin wavered. "What? Do you think I am bluffing? I will kill... " he began, but then blood gushed from his throat and a sharp crack rang out across the hangar deck.

Lenaux struggled from Nastasi's weakened grip and a second shot rang out, this one taking the scientist in the shoulder. He stumbled forward and fell into the open deck hatch, vanishing from sight without a cry.

"Nas!" Leleth sprang forward, ignoring Lenaux's attempt to restrain her. She dropped the riot gun on the deck and slithered down the ladder.

Nastasi Tai lay in a broken heap, one leg twisted under his body, both arms broken, but still alive; still conscious. As Leleth landed beside him he reached towards her as best he was able, but just as she moved to crouch beside him, something extraordinary happened. His eyes flashed white – just for a moment, but the light of them was clear and unmistakable in the darkness of the crawlspace – and then he slumped back.

"Nas?"

He looked up at her. "Where... What happened?" he asked. The blood at his throat bubbled and his voice was weak and liquid.

"You fell," she replied. "There are medics on the way, Nas. You... You'll be alright. You have to be." She reached out and took his hand, but he snatched it away as if burned. At first she thought that she must have hurt him, that his hand was broken, but the look in his eyes was one of disgust.

"Nas?"

"Don't touch me!" he demanded in a burbling, whistling hiss. The effort of this hate-filled outburst was fatal. Blood spurted from his mouth and from the wound. He fell back onto the deck and, with a last gurgle, he died.

Leleth emerged slowly, as though sleep-walking. Lenaux had largely recovered and now held the riot gun in his hand. Slowly the barrel rose towards Leleth.

She nodded. "You won't need it," she assured him. "I'll come quietly." She turned to Linx. "Get a hazmat team and have them take the body to the infirmary for a post mortem. The Chief and I need to get scanned again."

*

Later, as she left the prep room, having once more been declared free from Goa'uld infestation, Leleth was surprised to see Lenaux waiting for her. In fact, she was more than a little surprised to see him on his feet at all.

"My office," he said, simply.

 

In the office, he poured her a large uisce; a fifteen year old Malcra.

"You remembered," she said distractedly.

"It's a memorable choice; not all of my XOs had such good taste," he assured her.

"Thank you." She drained the glass and he refilled it. "Although I feel I should probably be drowning my sorrows in something rather less refined; like that stuff that Sergeant Jekes used to brew in the mortar casings."

Lenaux walked around behind her and clapped a hand onto her shoulder. Almost at once, Leleth felt as though she were fifteen years younger and a single sob shook her body.

"I... I need to make a full report on this incident," Lenaux said softly. "It won't be pretty."

"The élite are going to want heads," Leleth agreed. "I guess they'll have mine."

"Not if I can help it," Lenaux retorted. "You made the right call, Lance-Colonel."

She closed her eyes and schooled her anger. "I know that, sir," she replied bitterly. "It just doesn't help. But that's what I do, isn't it?" she asked. "I make the nasty decisions."

Lenaux walked to his seat and poured himself a drink. "I won't see you take the fall for this," he told Leleth.

Leleth gave a bark of sarcastic laughter. "You've been trying to throw me off this island since I first set foot on it!" she exclaimed.

"Yes I have," he agreed. "I thought it was a risk putting you on the front line of contact with the wider universe. I'm still not sure that it isn't."

Leleth tried to cap her rising anger. "I... I made what I thought was the right call at the time, sir."

"You disobeyed a direct order!" Lenaux snapped, his own composure slipping.

"So did you!"

Lenaux started up, then slumped back down into his seat. "We're getting off the point. What's past is past and I stand by your decision today. There are other people who should answer for what happened at Maila Magnis, but here and now I will not see anyone made a scapegoat. This falls on the Goa'uld's head and no other."

"They'll say I should have used the riot gun," Leleth noted.

"And why didn't you?"

"You would have been killed."

"I told you to do it, though."

Leleth looked at him, long and hard. "Why?" she asked. "You said to speak to Dr Stele. Are you sick, sir?"

Lenaux shrugged. "He says that there may be options."

"Sir?"

"It's a brain canker."

Leleth let out a short gasp of horror. "Like... " She stopped herself before she could speak the name.

"Like Reana's," he agreed. "It almost seemed like fate. I'm glad you didn't do it, by the way," he added. "With less concussion, dying seems a less attractive prospect."

Leleth squirmed awkwardly in her chair, uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. "I think I understand the Director a little more now," she noted.

"Oh?"

"I was... I thought I was having an affair with Nastasi," she admitted. She was quite gratified to see that Lenaux looked shocked. "Is that surprise or disbelief?"

"A little of both. I had no idea, but I wouldn't have thought... He was such an ass."

"Never with me," she assured him. "But then, he was too clever for that. You see, I realised today that I never knew Nastasi Tai; it was always the Goa'uld. That was why he worked so hard to keep the affair a secret; so people who knew Tai wouldn't see how out of character it was. I wanted to come clean, you know; I said we could work on different teams. I even offered to stand down from EF-1 and take command of 2."

"You volunteered to give up your post for him?" Lenaux was horrified.

Leleth shrugged. "I haven't been close to very many people, sir," she explained. "After... After Maila Magnis I focused on my career; I pushed people away."

"Developed the whole 'untouchable goddess' routine?"

She nodded. "Although I wouldn't have said goddess," she added with a blush.

"Thousands would."

"Tai was so insistent though; he wore me down and I was flattered that he thought I was worth the effort. But he said that he was élite and supposed to be celibate, so we had to keep it a secret or else he'd be recalled to his monastery. That was why we met in secret, off the grid.

"I did suspect him of spying for the Terranians," she admitted, "especially after you told me he was off the sensors more than I was. I tried to put pressure on him to stop, but I couldn't bring myself to turn him in. I was... I was in love with him."

"I understand."

"Only it wasn't him."

"It was the Goa'uld?"

Leleth nodded. "Always. When the Goa'uld died... Tai must have remembered what had happened between us and he was disgusted. He reacted as though he'd woken up next to a dog."

"Bastard," Lenaux muttered.

"You said you wouldn't let me take the fall. Now promise me you won't take the fall for me," Leleth said.

Lenaux looked up at her. "What?"

"Last time you told them you had refused the order to fire. You could have said that the order came from you, but instead you left them no choice but to discharge you. Don't do that now, especially not for me. Please. Whatever else, I nearly let a Goa'uld seduce me into betraying our whole world. If he'd got offworld because I thought I was in love... "

"I don't intend to see _anyone_ take a fall," Lenaux assured her.

Leleth set down her glass. "Thank you, sir," she said.

"And if it helps," he added, "he told me what his name was."

"Sir?"

"Insisted on telling me, actually. He was Atunis. So you may have been seduced, but it was by the god of love."

Leleth managed a small smile at that. "Thank you, sir."

*

"So... How are you feeling?" Louise asked Jonas as they walked back towards his room.

"Troubled," he admitted. "I need to appoint a new Chief Scientific Officer; my four flagship specialists have been whittled down to one, who may be arrested for the murder of an élite scientist; my computer system has been hacked and my base nearly invaded; Langara is, if anything, even further from any kind of unity than it was before I formed this Group; Kianna and Gereth don't seem much closer to getting back together... "

"Maybe a little closer," Louise suggested.

"Maybe," he allowed. "And... " He stopped and winced, putting a hand on his side again.

"And you definitely ate too much dinner," Louise finished.

"Yes. That too."

"So, I should probably leave you to get some rest," Louise suggested. "Or if I go, will you just bury yourself in work again until you give yourself a perforated ulcer?"

"Probably," he admitted.

"Then I'd better stay with you," she decided. "All night, if necessary."

"I... I think I like the sound of that," Jonas admitted.

Louise's heart flipped over in her chest.

*

Kaise Lenaux was looking forward to bed. Speaking civilly to Leleth had eased some of his fears, but roused old ghosts and he was looking forward to the oblivion of sleep. He never dreamed deeply enough for his rest to be disturbed. Unfortunately, there was one last duty to be attended to before he could retire for the night; a call which had come in while he had been unconscious and which demanded prompt action.

"I wondered if you would still be here," he admitted as he entered the computer room.

"Hold the door!" Molly called out, darting towards him, but the automatic door slid shut behind him; a little too close behind for comfort.

"What's wrong?" Lenaux asked.

"Well, as much as I like to finish what I start, I also like my beauty sleep," Molly admitted. "Honestly, I wish I'd turned in when Isato did. Look, I found another series of anomalous log entries; real recent this time. Fifteen of them all in one go. It looks like someone was trying to set up something big."

She scooted over so that Lenaux could see the screen. His eyes flickered over the entries and their authorisation codes. "Oh my gods," he murmured.

"Yeah. Well, I called you when I found them and then I probed a little deeper; got these IDs and details."

"Why didn't you call again?" Lenaux demanded. He snatched up the phone. "Lenaux," he announced, "get me... " He broke off when nothing but silence came from the receiver.

"That's why," Molly replied.

Lenaux dumped the useless phone back onto its cradle. "And the door... ?"

"Computer controlled; locked and sealed. All electronic communication cut off; I can still view the files in here, but I can't alter any of them. I was kinda counting on you showing up to rescue me. I don't suppose you told anyone where you were going?"

"Sorry."

"Oh well; plan B."

"What's plan B?" Lenaux asked.

"Whoever hacked this system is an expert. Since you seem to know who that is, I assume you can confirm that?"

"Absolutely. Practically designed the whole thing."

"Right. So, I can't hope to beat him in the software; I'm a hardware girl. Fortunately," she added, picking up a chair, "there's a hardware solution to every problem." With a mighty heave, she swung the chair at a panel beside the door. It buckled and twisted under the impact and she ripped it open. "It's just a question of reaching the hardware."

"How long will this take?" Lenaux asked.

"Not long. Why?"

"Because it's Quinn," he replied. "That's Jonas Quinn's Directorial access code."

Molly looked up at him in horror. But... But he's with Louise."

*

Almost before the door to Jonas' quarters had closed behind them, he had turned to Louise and was kissing her passionately. She was startled, but not unpleasantly so and she felt her whole body go loose as she leaned into him, clutching hungrily at him and letting a year of stress and disappointment find its release. She felt his fingers slide across her face and shoulders, touching, gripping, with the same desperate strength as hers and then...

And then those fingers were somehow at her throat and pressing hard, too hard into her flesh. She tried to cry out, but had no breath; tried to struggle but had no strength.

"Jonas?" she whispered, and then she collapsed.

Jonas let her fall. He gazed at the boneless heap of her for a moment, then walked calmly to the phone. He took a moment to prepare himself and then dialled a number.

"Miss Arden!" he gasped breathlessly. "Please come quickly; it's Miss Stillwell."

Tanith was there in moments. She took in the scene and Jonas' now distraught features at a glance. Without hesitation, she crouched beside Louise and felt her throat.

"She's alive," she reported, "but... "

Hard-won instinct saved her life. As the statuette swept down, she hurled herself aside, so that she received no more than a glancing blow to the side of her head. Still she was staggered and forced onto the defensive as Jonas came for her again, swinging the statuette in quick, expert blows.

Tanith backed away fast, giving her room to draw her pistol, but here her training failed her. She had been charged with protecting the man who was trying to kill her and nothing had ever prepared her for that. She hesitated for one fatal moment and the weapon was knocked from her grasp. Jonas closed with her and grappled her, pinning her to him with inhuman strength and forcing a kiss on her mouth.

"I've been wanting to do that for _so_ long," he growled, and his voice was changed somehow. There was a depth and resonance to it that was not inhuman, but was nonetheless far from Jonas' normal tone.

Tanith squirmed in his grasp, fighting down her revulsion. He released her very suddenly and she stumbled back onto the balcony.

"What are you?" she asked.

He gave a single, cold laugh and then he rushed her, striking at her face and slamming his shoulder into her chest so that she was winded, propelled backwards and toppled over the balcony without so much as a cry.

Jonas licked his lips. "Pity," he said, but then he turned his gaze to the unconscious Louise. "But I have plans for you, my dear, and I could not have carried you both." He picked up Tanith's sidearm and tucked it into his belt. He then crossed to where Louise lay and crouched by her side. Reaching out his hand, he traced the lines of her firm jaw and gently brushed the hair from her face.

"Humans are such frail creatures," he mused. "But you will soon be strong, Louise; you will be so very strong."

*

Molly gave a shriek of pain and snatched her burned fingers back from the panel, but her crosswiring had done the trick and the door slid open. She swore and tucked her hand under her arm as she followed Lenaux from the room.

"Note for future reference, doors should have _handles_ ," she groused.

The lights along the corridor dimmed and an alarm klaxon blared.

"Another lockdown?" she asked.

"No," Lenaux replied. "That's the Gate alarm. It means that someone is opening a wormhole without authorisation. Ordinarily we switch in several backup power systems when the Gate is activated; the lights are going because that hasn't happened." He turned to face Molly. "I have to get to the Threshold. That means I need _you_ to go to the power control room, one floor down, and shunt all peripheral systems to secondary power, otherwise we'll lose the mainframe when the wormhole opens and we need those computers if we're going to fix this mess."

"Right," Molly agreed.

 

Lenaux ran as fast as he could. It struck him that this was not as fast as it had once been, but he thrust that thought aside. At the door to the Threshold, Leleth Aaen was watching a group of technicians try to cut their way through the bulkhead door. Medics were tending to the guards, several of whom had been shot and at least one of whom was dead.

"What happened?" he asked.

Leleth turned to face him. "Someone took out the technicians in the control room, came down here and did the same to the guards, then went in and sealed the door. Either there's someone still up there or they put the Gate on a time delay."

"Is that possible?"

"I have absolutely no idea, but if our intruder can lock out my access codes, I don't see why not."

"Alright," Lenaux said. "Back from the door," he told the techs. "We'll see if my security override still works."

"Sir!" Leleth called.

Lenaux turned and she tossed him an AW-18 – the weapon of choice for the security garrison. She herself was carrying an SF-5 riot gun again.

He nodded his thanks, then turned to the panel. "Ready?"

"Ready, sir."

Lenaux tapped in his code. After a tense moment, the panel lit up green and the door hissed open. Lenaux dived through, coming up in a firing position with Leleth at his shoulder. He had a clear line of sight to Jonas Quinn, standing on the platform in front of the event horizon, but Jonas turned and the limp form of Louise Stillwell blocked the shot.

"Aaen!"

"Sir!"

With a harsh whine, the riot gun fired; a flash like lightning cut the air between Leleth and Quinn and the discharge arced around him. He fell like a stone... straight into the event horizon.

"No!" Lenaux shouted. He ran forward, but no part of the Director or of Miss Stillwell remained in sight. After a moment the Stargate shut down and the Threshold was plunged into darkness.

"Sir?" Leleth asked.

"Aaen?" Lenaux's voice was lifeless. This was the end; there was no way that the SEG could survive this.

"If I may make so bold, sir, it seems that our Director and our guest have been abducted by an unknown Goa'uld."

Lenaux turned a grateful look towards her voice. "That sounds... "

"Plausible?" she asked.

"Something like that."

The emergency lighting flickered on at last and the two Andari looked at one another.

"Find Dr Stele; I want to know why the scanner said Quinn was clean," Lenaux ordered. "Get someone into that control room and then round up AS-1; we may need some muscle. We'll see what the damage is here and then you're going after them."

Leleth saluted smartly. "Yes, sir."

*

_Skanda_

Louise came to in the rush of the wormhole. A moment later, she and Jonas Quinn crashed out of the Stargate onto a stone ramp. Armoured feet tramped on the stone around them and rough hands hauled her up. She was held by two Jaffa as a third strode over to Jonas. Her captors were the usual Jaffa warriors, but the third was quite a different creature; tall, elegant and beautiful.

The woman was dressed from head to toe in black. Her hair was long, lustrous and as black as ebony. She wore a close-fitting, black silk shirt and a jerkin of tough, black leather over the top. Her legs were sheathed – that was precisely the word – in black leather, softer than that of the jerkin. A sleek, black pistol hung in a black leather holster from a black leather belt, slung low beneath a black sash that held a black-handled shortsword in a black, lacquered scabbard. Her boots were not leather, but were formed of a smooth, black substance like an insect's carapace; bracers of the same substance encased her forearms.

This woman turned briefly towards Louise, before turning away in disdain. Louise had a brief glimpse of intense features with an Oriental cast; the face seemed almost bone-white against her dark costume.

With almost inhuman smoothness, keeping her back absolutely vertical, she fell to her knees before Jonas. She bowed low and pressed her hands and forehead to the ramp. "Welcome to Skanda, my Master," she said in a throaty, sensual purr.

Louise's hands curled instinctively into fists.

With some effort, Jonas pushed himself up. The woman hurried to help him, but Jonas shoved her away with alarming ferocity.

"Master," she repeated in an apologetic tone. This time she bowed only from the waist.

"Have any others arrived, Sakiko?" Jonas demanded.

Louise shrank fearfully from the arrogance in his tone.

"No, Master."

Jonas nodded. "Excellent," he purred. "Then there is much to be organised. Come, Sakiko!" He strode down the ramp, not even pausing as he called out. "And have the girl given quarters. She is to be watched, but not harmed."

"Jonas!" Louise called out, appalled.

Jonas stopped and turned. He looked at her with a coldness that froze Louise to the marrow.

"My name is se-Osiris," he told her.

*

_The Stargate Facility_

The CAT scanner was in a sorry state. Dr Thien hovered and fussed as Molly pulled her precious machine to pieces, but Kianna was inflexible. She was convinced that Jonas could only have been acting under Goa'uld domination, yet his scans had come back clear. Therefore, there must be something wrong with the scanner, some sabotage that enabled the Goa'uld to present a clear scan of Jonas' brain.

But... "There's nothing wrong with it," Molly announced. "No signal interrupters, no hidden plates or false images. The CAT scanner is working perfectly."

"Well, it was," Thien grumbled.

"Relax, sugar," Molly cooed. "I'll have it right as rain in an hour. You watch me; maybe you can learn a thing or two."

"You must have missed something!" Kianna insisted. "Check again and... "

"Look, heart-face," Molly said, with fraying patience, "this is what there is." As a mere senior airman, Molly was capable of absorbing a near-infinite level of crap from an officer, but there were limits to what she would take from a civilian. "I can check again" – she ran her gaze over the scatter of components with exaggerated motions – "and there's still nothing here. Now I don't speak for any conclusions," she added more gently, "but this is this and the facts are that there's nothing there. I'm sorry, honey, but there it is."

Kianna drew herself for a moment, but then deflated. "Right. Fine. Just... don't call me heart-face."

"Sure thing, ma'am."

Kianna turned away and walked to the door. It did not seem possible that Jonas had done these terrible things in his right mind, but neither could she think of any other explanation.

"Hey."

She turned her head. "Hey, Gereth," she sighed. He laid a hand on her shoulder and she turned to flop against his chest like a weary child.

"You need some sleep," he told her.

"I'll be alright."

"Speaking as your doctor, I beg to differ," Gereth insisted.

"I just have to know," she argued. "I have to know that he was being controlled."

Gereth sighed and stroked her hair; it was a familiar sensation and it lulled Kianna towards the welcoming arms of sleep.

"It isn't your fault," he murmured. "He fooled us all."

"It isn't that. After what Kelan did to him, it meant so much to me that he still trusted _me_. It kept me going when I felt there was nothing else left for me, Gereth. My friends couldn't forgive me for things Kelan had said, but a stranger could see that I might still be the woman I had been before."

"I... I'm sorry," Gereth mumbled. "I know I should have called you back, but... "

"Don't!" she interrupted. "The things she did to you were unforgivable. I've never blamed you for staying away. But now I wonder if he didn't just want me around _because_ no one else trusted me. I knew as much about Goa'uld technology as he did, more perhaps, and I had been possessed."

"Infested."

"Whatever. The point is, when someone found the systems had been hacked, who would they suspect?"

"Kianna... "

"Yes! Kianna. They'd look at me and follow me and dig into my logs and they might not find anything, but they wouldn't be looking at _him_. He overruled Lenaux's objections to Lance-Colonel Aaen. They have history, Lenaux and Aaen; now I wonder if she wasn't another distraction."

"Kianna, listen," Gereth said firmly. "I... I have a theory."

Kianna pulled away from him and looked up. "What do you mean?"

"About the scan."

"Tell me," she insisted.

"If... "

"I _promise_ I'll get some sleep, but please, tell me."

Gereth nodded. "Jonas had been complaining of exhaustion and indigestion," he explained. "I put him on a diet and made sure that the chefs kept him to it; I told him to maintain a strict sleep regime and as far as I could tell he was keeping to that as well. He had no complaints of insomnia, just extreme fatigue, so I put him on a course of mild relaxants to try and reduce his stress levels. _Still_ he kept feeling tired and his abdominal pain got worse.

"I booked him in for a surgical exploration of his abdomen; I was worried that he might be suffering from appendicitis or an ulcer."

"And what did you find?" Kianna asked.

"Nothing," Gereth replied, helplessly. "He cancelled the op three times, citing urgent Group business. I was on the point of having him constrained for medical examination when Tai and Aaen started trying to strong-arm me and I realised I'd be handing them control of the Facility. I tried to explain this to Jonas, but he wouldn't listen."

Kianna shook her head. "But what does this have to do with Jonas betraying us?"

"What do we really know about the Goa'uld infestation process, except that it attaches to the major neural cluster in the base of the brain? Well, what if this one doesn't? What if this Goa'uld – or something like a Goa'uld – nestles in the abdomen and attacks the nervous system through the spinal column? How would we ever know?"

"Surely someone would have noticed," Kianna sighed. "His secretary should... " She broke off, horrified.

"Kianna?"

"Where is his secretary?"

*

Tanith Arden was in a terrible state, having spent the better part of an hour hanging from the edge of Jonas' balcony, but she was able to confirm the worst fears of the SEG's remaining leaders.

"You're sure it wasn't him?" Lenaux asked urgently.

"He'd knocked Miss Stillwell out and he tried to stave my head in with a statuette of Artume," Tanith replied.

"It's evidence, but not proof," Gereth said.

"He... He also kissed me," Tanith admitted.

Isato and Kianna shared a glance and then said in unison: "He's possessed."

"Please!" Gereth protested. "Infested is the preferred medical term; possessed is so... supernatural."

Lenaux signalled to Gereth's paramedics that they could take Tanith's stretcher.

"I'm sorry, Chief," the young woman said. "I let you down."

"You were hardly prepared for this," he assured her. "Tai got the drop on me and I suspected him. Your orders were to protect Quinn, not spy on him." He laid a hand on her shoulder, making sure that it was not the one that had carried her weight for that endless hour. "You've done well, Dragoon."

"Thank you, Sir."

Lenaux turned to his colleagues. "Any luck limiting the spread of this particular news item?"

"Given the failures in the computer core and power systems, it wasn't hard to justify instituting a system-wide shutdown, maintenance check and reboot," Isato replied. "I've had a few words with the master technicians and they say they can spin the shutdown out for up to three hours before anyone smells a rat. I called Viola Blys at the Colony and she has agreed to institute a similar procedure there, although obviously the defences have to be cycled off in strict rotation. Still, internal communications will be down, so hopefully no-one at the Colony will have any idea what is happening yet."

The telephone rang and one of Lenaux's men answered it.

"If anyone does ask, blame illegal circuit interference and say we're close to making arrests," Lenaux suggested. "We have a black market problem that I was going to handle later, but I think a little diversion might not go amiss."

"Chief."

Lenaux turned to face the man at the phone.

"It's Lance-Colonel Aaen, sir. She says there's a problem."

 

"The Gate won't open," Leleth explained.

It was hardly surprising, Lenaux thought. They had been forced to cut their way in and the sight that greeted their eyes was grim. Jonas – or whichever Goa'uld had possessed him – had killed the two technicians on duty and their blood was spattered across the walls. There were now four deaths and the attempted murder of Tanith Arden and a further five guards on the Goa'uld's account; if it was a Goa'uld. The computers looked untouched, but the indicator lights did not flicker as they should.

"What did he do?" he asked.

Kianna pushed past the technicians to examine one of the terminals. "Eviscerated the dialling program," she explained. "We have backups of the program code, but if we install those we'll lose all the file records. We need to recode practically from scratch and I doubt anyone except Jonas or Academician Tai could have done that."

Lenaux swore. "There must be a way of getting that Gate open," he insisted.

"We could bring in the DHD from the Kelownan mainland," Kianna suggested. "We left it where it was when we decided that a dialling computer was a more secure means of accessing the Gate, but it is still in the museum of antiquities. Parliament will probably be pretty unpleasant about letting us use it, but... "

"How long?"

"Days by gyrolift," Kianna replied, "but if we take one of the shuttles I can probably have it reconnected in a matter of hours."

Lenaux nodded. "Let me know when you're on your way back and I'll notify the government that you're taking it," he said.

"Will you need a pilot?" Leleth asked.

Kianna shook her head. "I know those shuttles better than anyone on Langara," she assured the soldier, "but a little muscle might come in handy."

Leleth turned to Lenaux. "Well, we're not going anywhere without this thing, sir."

"Go," Lenaux agreed. "Stop in the Colony and pick up a Trooper Badon from the lock-up; you may find him useful. Just keep an eye on him and make sure you bring him back; I want a long talk with that young man when his skills are at less of a premium. Dr Cyr!" he called, as the two women started for the door. "The Tumbler?"

"Just fine," Kianna assured him. "It's got its own power supply and three independent triggers; we're still as secure as we ever were."

"Thank the gods for small mercies. Good luck and godspeed." He turned back to the viewing window when they were gone. "Good luck to us all."

*

_Skandra_

"Shall I serve you tea, Master?" Sakiko asked.

Se-Osiris, dressed in Goa'uld finery, sat on a stool at a low table, reading from a tablet, which lay before him. He looked up at his servant and Sakiko could feel him not merely undressing but _devouring_ her with his gaze. She shivered pleasurably.

"Tea," he replied. "Yes, Sakiko. You may do that."

Sakiko set the tray on the table and knelt to serve him. "May I say what a pleasure it is to see you again, Master," she said.

"Of course you may."

"I have long awaited your return."

Se-Osiris laughed. "You speak as though we knew one another." There was a resonance in his voice that was not Jonas Quinn's, but he did not sound like a Goa'uld. Perhaps that was why Sakiko had let herself say too much.

Sakiko blushed. "I do not mean to speak out of turn, but... "

"But you are labouring under a misapprehension," se-Osiris told her.

Sakiko set a cup before him. As she withdrew her hand he caught her by the wrist and held her fast. "I am not Jonas Quinn," he told her, twisting her hand outward so that pain shot through her forearm. "I have been sharing with him for some time, ruling this body while he slept and enduring his vacillating presence in his waking hours, but that is no longer necessary. The body is mine and Jonas Quinn, for whom you have waited so patiently, is gone."

The torsion in her arm became too much for Sakiko to bear and she cried out. Se-Osiris responded by twisting harder, pitching the Jaffa onto her side.

"Do you understand the difference between us?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she gasped.

"Good." Se-Osiris released her arm and picked up his tea. He took a delicate sip and smiled. "Excellent," he sighed. "I am pleased with you, Sakiko."

Sakiko fought the urge to cradle her arm. She rose to her knees once more and gazed at the tabletop. "Thank you, Master."

"Come. Kneel at my side," se-Osiris ordered. "I wish you to speak to me. My Lord Osiris left so many documents, but I would sooner hear her intentions from one as lovely as you."

"My Lord." Sakiko rose to her feet, crossed to se-Osiris' side and knelt once more.

"I think that I prefer to be called Master," he mused, "but pray begin at the beginning. Tell me how I came to be."

"Yes, Master. My Lord Osiris and her scientists spent much time working for Lord Anubis on the creation of a new form of Goa'uld, one that would form a replacement for the Jaffa," she admitted reluctantly. "One of her experimental breeds she named the Galloglas; they were intended as agents and spies who could pass easily for a human or Jaffa. It was a part of her test of my loyalty when I joined her to implant within Jonas Quinn's body the seed from which one of the Galloglas would grow."

"Through the wound that you had dressed for him. A most cunning betrayal," he noted approvingly.

Sakiko blushed, mortified by her own treachery. Honour was paramount to her people and she knew that, by sacrificing that in order to survive, she had crippled her own kalash. It seemed that se-Osiris understood this as well.

"How did you come to betray him, anyway?" se-Osiris asked idly. "My Lord Osiris was a meticulous record keeper as far as essential process goes, but she had little interest in motivation."

"I... I was captured attempting to procure our escape from Origehara. My Lord offered me a way to survive if I would obtain a sample of Jonas Quinn's DNA and implant your geneseed within his body. She saw that I was weak," the Bushi admitted. "She knew before I did that I would do anything to survive; even betray a man who had risked himself to save my life."

"You were nothing to him," se-Osiris assured her.

"Yet he would have stayed with me to the end if I had not forced him to go; died with me rather than save himself. He had honour... "

"And you have destroyed him." He turned and stroked her face with a tender hand. His eyes cut into her like blades and his voice was a gentle, reproving whisper as he said: "He saw such innocence in you; purity and honour."

She tried to turn away from his remorseless gaze, but his hand held her still.

"He will never know what a viper he risked his life for," se-Osiris promised. "For that, you may thank me, Sakiko."

He drew his hand back and held it towards her, knuckles uppermost. She bent her head and kissed his fingers. "Thank you, Master," she said in a quavering voice.

"Continue your story."

"I served My Lord for some time after that, keeping her chambers and caring for her genetic experiments. Eventually, when she believed that my loyalty was absolute, she entrusted me with the keeping of this base. She explained that you would come here one day and that, if she could not return here herself, you would be my master. When she died... "

Se-Osiris lashed out in sudden fury, sending Sakiko sprawling across the floor. "You will not repeat such obscenities!" he roared. "It is a trick; a deception. Lord Osiris can not be slain."

"It is the truth," Sakiko assured him in a whisper.

"Never!"

He rose to his feet and dragged her up with his right hand, lifting his left to strike. The crystal in the heart of his ribbon device flashed and the pain of the blast wiped every other sensation from Sakiko's mind. When she fell in a swoon and woke at her master's feet, she did not know if he had held her under the beam for seconds or minutes. Her head was pounding and her throat was ragged from cries that she had been unable to hear herself give.

"My Lord Osiris is not dead, whatever propaganda may have reached the SEG," se-Osiris said again. He had returned to his seat and was sipping his tea. "It is a trick; a deception. Lady Lamia has taken control of our father's territories until she returns, that is all. She will emerge from hiding now that her new breed are ready; now that _I_ am ready to serve her."

Sakiko tried to speak, but her voice would not come yet.

"So much for that conversation, then," se-Osiris sighed. "I shall return presently and we may speak of pleasanter things. In the meantime, I should see that my guest is being made comfortable. Do help yourself to tea, my dear; call it a reversion of offerings."

*

Louise paced to and fro in her cell, fretting and muttering to herself. She had made a few rather fruitless attempts to escape, but she had no real skills in the fields of electronic engineering or escapology and her efforts were doomed before they began. She would have given anything for SG-1 to be there, or even Molly and her 1337 hardware 5ki112.

Her prison was lavishly decorated in a vaguely Egyptian style, but Louise refused to eat any of the grapes or recline on either of the couches, let alone the bed, for fear that she might lose the desire to escape and become a slave to the decadence on offer. Although she knew that she was judging herself harshly, Louise felt as bad as she had ever done. She had always known that she was physically vulnerable – Amy pointed out often enough that she would not have passed a basic Air Force fitness test, and her limited fighting skills were suited to bar brawls rather than real combat – but now she felt stupid, naïve and incredibly gullible as well. How long had Jonas been controlled? She had no idea; she had certainly noticed nothing until his fingers had fastened in that numbing grip on her throat.

 _No_ , she realised suddenly. _I_ did _notice something. I knew that he was not acting like himself. He was too openly passionate, too fierce and too... too interested in me_. This train of thought did not seem particularly fruitful, so she abandoned it. She was contemplating the possibilities offered by various methods of suicide when she realised that the door had opened and that she was being watched.

"I do hope that you are not planning anything dramatic," se-Osiris noted. "I should hate for you to come to harm when I have such plans for you."

Louise made an effort to seem brave, although she felt sure that she failed. "You... you don't sound like a Goa'uld," she said.

"I am something new," se-Osiris assured her. "I am the future, or I should say that _we_ are the future, my dear. You see, unlike that fool Jonas Quinn... "

Louise clenched her hands into fists.

"... I am not blind to the virtues of those around me." He left the doorway and sauntered towards her with an inviting smile. He looked good in his finery, which had a refined cut by Goa'uld standards, but Louise tried not to think about that.

Sensing that she might not get another chance, Louise made a break for the open door, but se-Osiris snaked out a hand and caught her arm. As he pulled her close and wound his other arm around her waist, she saw the door close.

" _He_ never noticed you, Louise," se-Osiris purred. "He chased nurses and let himself be seduced by alien slatterns like my pretty jade, Sakiko. But you, his constant, he looked on only as a sister."

"You can't know that," Louise protested.

"Yes I can," se-Osiris assured her. "I know everything about him. His mind, his memory, is an open book to me. I know how little he thought of the treasure that life had given to him." He held her tight around the waist and lifted his other hand to stroke her face possessively. "But _I_ value you. Such beauty is rare and your devotion has moved me. You will have a great role to play in my plans, Louise; a part to which you are perfectly suited and which shall bring you such fulfilment."

He bent his face to hers and kissed her. Louise leaned into him for a moment, then sank her teeth hard into his lip.

With a cry of pain, se-Osiris thrust her away. "You vicious little witch!" he spat.

Louise forced a bitter laugh through her throat to keep from crying. "Believe it, buster! Sorry, but I'm not the Little Miss Congeniality you take me for."

Suppressing his rage with a great effort, se-Osiris gave a hollow laugh and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Louise was dismayed to notice that the tooth marks in his lip were already half-healed and no longer bled. "I look forward to seeing that spirit crumble," he assured her, "as crumble it... " He winced and clutched at his stomach again.

Louise laughed again; this time it came out as a broken cackle. "Some Goa'uld!" she scoffed. "Whoever heard of a god with appendicitis?"

"It is not appendicitis," he growled.

"Looks like it. I remember when Daniel... "

"I do not have appendicitis!" se-Osiris roared. "You will learn the cause before long, Louise Stillwell and come to know it well. For now, however, know only that you _will_ serve my purposes. You shall have no choice; no chance to resist."

"Says you." Louise could have kicked herself, but she could not think of any better comeback.

Se-Osiris stalked to the door and pounded on the panels. Louise ran at him as the door opened, but he waved his hand at her and a ripple of energy threw her down. She bruised her hip on one of the couches as she fell.

"Rest easy, my love. Save your strength. You shall need it."

The door slammed shut and Louise began to cry.

*

_Kelowna City Museum of Art and Antiquities_

Leleth was getting impatient. She had been waiting for three hours while Kianna Cyr tried to negotiate the release of the DHD from the museum's secure research wing and she was getting itchy. She would have loved to have eased the negotiations along with a little applied violence. Unfortunately, the museum was guarded by a large number of rather twitchy guards; patriotic zealots armed with sap guns. The vicious, lever-action weapons fired a small pouch of sand; allegedly they were non-lethal, but serious haemorrhage was not uncommon. Leleth did not care to test their resolve, especially not when she had been obliged to leave her weapons on the shuttle. It seemed that the Kelownans were not ready to trust an armed Andari officer on their home soil. Even her officer's cutlass had been forbidden, a calculated insult or Leleth was no judge.

Trooper Badon would have been little help in a fight. He had been unarmed when he boarded the shuttle and had explained that he was serving on the island as a parolee.

"Just why are you here?" Leleth wondered aloud. "Chief Lenaux said you'd be useful, but I can't see how."

Badon shrugged. "I could go and fetch the DHD if you like," he offered.

"But we don't have permission."

"I've rarely let that bother me." He fished in the pocket of his tunic and produced a flat, cardboard box. "Consider these my reference."

Leleth took the box and opened it. Eight excellent references lay inside, the characteristic aroma rising rich and heavy from their dark wrappings. She closed the box and, after a moment's consideration, handed it back to Badon. "That's an impressive set of testimonials. I don't think Astharia has exported _any_ of those since the first naquadria detonation. What did you have in mind?"

Badon tucked the box away. "Ask to speak to Dr Cyr, have her spin out negotiations for at least an hour, then meet me at the docks with the shuttle ready to go in two hours time."

Leleth gave a crooked smile. "Do I want to know?"

"Only if you want to be culpable."

"Then you're dismissed, Trooper," she said. "I'll see you at the docks in two hours."

*

_Skandra_

Not long after se-Osiris left her, a handmaiden entered Louise's cell and tended to her bruises. She used an ointment that numbed the skin and reduced the swelling and, Louise realised with alarmed detachment, also left her feeling distant from her self. She watched in horror as the handmaiden led her to a bathroom, stripped her, washed her and dressed her in a fabulous gown of dark green silk, but it was as though she were watching it happen to someone else. She tried to scream, but no sound came out.

The handmaiden applied several thick layers of make-up to Louise's face – Louise was sure that she must look like a clown or a harlot – and then left her in the living room of her prison suite, sitting demurely on a couch with her hands folded on her lap. Louise observed all this with disgust and, once the handmaiden was gone, redoubled her efforts to struggle.

Slowly, feeling returned to her limbs, along with a definite sense that they were _her_ limbs and not somebody else's. With some difficulty, she rose to her feet and returned to the bathroom; a brief glance in the mirror was enough to confirm her suspicions, but she could not have said for sure if she fell on the clown or harlot side of the line. She wiped off the make-up and considered stripping off the dress, but she realised that her own clothes had been taken and she was not prepared to strut around naked to make a point.

"And it is a rather nice dress," she admitted to herself. "A little bit wafty, perhaps, but better than most Oscar night efforts."

The sound of the cell door opening broke her from her contemplation. She returned to the living room with what she hoped was a regal swagger, or as near as she could manage in bare feet.

The Jaffa woman was waiting for her, with a deadly gleam in her eyes. "Miss Louise Stillwell," she spat. "My master desires that you should dine with him."

"Dine?" Louise asked. "As in... dinner? How long have I been out?"

"The drug usually wears off in about five hours. Appetite is often the last thing to return, so you will likely be very hungry by the time we reach my master's private chambers."

"And if I decline his invitation?"

"It is not an invitation," Sakiko assured her. "If you refuse, you will be whipped for disobedience, as your handmaiden will be flogged for failing to paint your face as she was commanded."

"She painted it," Louise assured her, "I just cleaned it off. I felt like Marcel Marceaux. Well, if it's a choice between dinner and a whipping... "

"A _public_ whipping," Sakiko added spitefully.

"Who am I to turn down a free meal?"

 

The dining hall was decorated in black and russet, and furnished in a Japanese style. Louise felt out of place in her Greco-Roman gown, but a little sartorial gaucherie was the least of her concerns.

"You look positively divine, my dear," se-Osiris said. He laid a possessive hand on her hip as he greeted her and Louise had to struggle to stay calm and still as he kissed her cheek. "I think you were right to dispense with the make-up; your natural colouring suits that shade of green so much better."

"I'm sorry not to have disappointed you," Louise drawled. She thought that the last traces of the drug might be dampening her fear; her guts were still crawling and her heart was racing, but so far her hands and her voice were steady.

She sat, cross-legged, opposite her host, who smiled at her with Jonas's mouth while a serving girl set out the table. Her throat felt dry and she took a drink of water before she could think better of it. Almost at once a languid ease settled over her; her heartbeat slowed and her stomach ceased its perturbations.

"Please do help yourself," se-Osiris invited. "I recall from Jonas's memories that you are quite partial to Japanese food?"

Louise decided that she would not speak to him, but she did pick up a pair of chopsticks, take one of the makizushi rolls from her plate and pop it into her mouth. Only much later would she be able to confirm that her reaction was unconnected to her drugged state; she closed her eyes and uttered an involuntary moan.

"Oh," she groaned. "Oh, my."

"You like it?" se-Osiris asked, chewing absentmindedly at his own food.

Although she did not want to respond, Louise had been raised by a father who practically worshipped food. For her, to lie about a meal was as unthinkable as spitting in a font. "It... It is incredible," she admitted. "I have never tasted anything like it."

Louise almost wept as the servants brought dish after dish to the table. Lulled by the drugs in her system, she could not have resisted if she had wanted to, which she did not. The food was the best she had known since leaving home and even her father's chef, Antoinette, could not have prepared such an exquisite feast. The wine was also excellent and it flowed liberally, easing the conversation, which focused almost entirely on Louise. Constantly, se-Osiris asked her questions about herself and about her home. How many were in her family? When did she first eat this food? What was her school like? Did she enjoy her work? He asked her about the man who had left her so sad before she met Jonas and about her relationship with her colleagues.

And she answered, guardedly at first, but with increasing candour as the food and the wine and se-Osiris' charm did their work.

The highlight of the meal was a particularly superb fugu. While Louise enjoyed the expertly filleted and sliced fish, however, se-Osiris wolfed down what appeared to be some manner of viscera.

"What is that?" she asked him.

"Do you know how that dish was produced?" he asked, indicating her fugu.

"Of course," Louise replied. "The fish has to be carefully prepared so as to remove all of the toxic organs and... " She froze, staring at se-Osiris in horror.

"Go on," he invited.

"Some people say that the liver is the best part of the fish, despite the concentration of poison," she finished.

"I don't see what's so special about it myself," se-Osiris admitted.

"You... You've just eaten a pufferfish full of tetrodotoxin."

"Yes." He licked his lips, slowly. "Oh; it does give one a delightful tingling sensation on the tongue, though. Oh, don't worry about me," he added. "I could filter five times as much toxin from this body's bloodstream. Eat up, now; I believe that there are some fine desserts yet to come."

Louise shivered, suddenly remembering where she was, and with whom, and realising that she might have said more than she should.

As she sipped tea at the end of the meal, Louise found a lethargy coming over her that she did not think had anything to do with drugs. She was replete, full to bursting with fine food. Her father had once told her that he would die happy if he could die on a full stomach and for the first time, she almost understood him.

Se-Osiris led her, unresisting, to a couch and sat her down. He sat close beside her and, despite her stupefaction, she shifted away from him.

"Still so distrustful?" he asked.

"I have been kidnapped and drugged," she reminded him. "I shall always be suspicious of you, however good your chef may be."

"At least you enjoyed the meal. Do you hear that, Sakiko? One of us at least was satisfied by your efforts."

"Thank you, master," Sakiko growled, shooting envious glowers at Louise.

"You were not so coy after our last meal together," the Goa'uld teased.

"That wasn't you."

"Oh, but it was. It was I who ate with you and I who kissed you. Admittedly, I could only control this body when Jonas Quinn was asleep – a restriction which no longer binds me, by the way – but fortunately for me, he fell asleep waiting for you to get changed."

"No."

Se-Osiris gave a cruel laugh, which broke off in a cry as he doubled over, clutching his stomach. Louise looked for a way to make use of this distraction to escape, but the wine had addled her wits and she knew that she would have been too slow for Sakiko anyway.

"Master, forgive me!" the Bushi begged, falling to her knees.

"This is no doing of yours, you fool!" se-Osiris spat. "It is only the inevitable pangs of birth."

Louise was startled. "Birth?" she asked.

"Yes, my darling," he replied, straightening up and resuming his smooth, reassuring manner. "You see, I am not like the old Goa'uld, dependent on a Queen to spawn my offspring and Jaffa to carry them. My children will be born directly from my flesh, spawned from my symbiote body. Already, young as I am, I am preparing to birth my first offspring; my consort."

Louise swallowed hard. "Consort," she whispered horrified.

Sakiko looked as stricken as if she had eaten se-Osiris' leftover fugu.

"And now you know your role in this, Louise," se-Osiris said.

He reached towards her and, as he did so, Louise bent double and threw up in his lap.

*

_Kelowna City Aerodrome_

"Do you think he's making a run for it?" Kianna asked.

Leleth shook her head.

"The Chief did say that he wanted to talk to him."

"Yes," Leleth agreed, "but he also said he might be useful. I can't think what else he might have meant and the man's references are excellent."

"References?"

"He offered me a box of Atharisan cigars," Leleth explained.

Kianna's eyes widened. "Did you take them?"

"Take black market goods?" Leleth asked. "Not with the Terranians likely to come gunning for me any minute. Besides, when the supply went down I decided it was time to quit. Apparently it's not good for you."

"I heard that," Kianna admitted.

Leleth shrugged. "You have to be pretty good at that line of work to get hold of Atharisans and this _is_ his stomping ground. He'll have the knowledge and the contacts."

"But we're not talking about a few contraband cigars; the DHD is one of the most powerful artefacts on Langara."

Leleth shrugged again. "The Chief said to use him."

"And you trust Lenaux that far?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I guess this is as good a chance as any to find out whether I can." She sat up and bent over the rear scanners. "And here's our proof."

"Lance-Colonel?"

"Open the hatch; there's a van approaching and I don't think we want to hang around once we've unloaded."

 

Trooper Badon jogged up the ramp into the shuttle's cargo bay and waved a greeting to Leleth. "Those lads down there are bringing our cargo aboard. You'd better go forward and transmit our priority clearance codes to air control."

"We don't have priority... Where did you get those?" Leleth demanded, snatching the papers from Badon's hand.

"Much the same place I got the transfer of goods orders for the DHD and the emergency fumigation request for the secure laboratories. If I timed it right, they won't even realise that the DHD is missing from under its covers until the fumes clear in six hours."

"And if you haven't?"

"Well, we'd just better have those codes transmitted before the sirens get too close," Badon replied.

"You're a bad man, Trooper."

"But very good at it."

Leleth tucked the papers into the pocket of her fatigues. "I'm not complaining," she assured him. "A good man is hard to find; a bad one can be priceless."

*

_Skandra_

It had almost been worth everything to see se-Osiris lose his cool, Louise decided. Almost. He had struggled for control, desperately trying to maintain his façade of solicitous affection, but there was probably no being in the galaxy who was suave enough to face a lap full of regurgitated sashimi with equanimity. He had flung Louise away from him with considerable violence. His entire body had been trembling with rage as he ordered Sakiko to return Louise to her cell. He had swiftly corrected himself to 'apartments' and tried to apologise for his outburst, but they both knew that any vestige of pretence was over.

"You could try to run," Sakiko told Louise as they approached her sumptuous prison.

"I can barely walk," Louise replied. "Besides, I don't want to give you the excuse to shoot me yet."

"You prefer to wait and be taken by his consort," the Jaffa spat.

"There's almost certainly a sarcophagus around here somewhere, so suicide would only play into his hands." She stopped and turned to face Sakiko. "You know, this wasn't my idea."

The Bushi hissed angrily and drew the slim pistol from her hip. She levelled the slender barrel at Louise's face. "Run," she growled. "Run from me, human."

Louise took a deep breath. "No," she said.

"Run!"

"If I run, you'll shoot me."

"I'll shoot you anyway."

"No you won't. Not while he wants me alive." Louise took a step closer to Sakiko and laid a hand over the Jaffa's. Slowly, the pistol lowered. "Besides, it isn't me you're mad at."

"You're very brave," Sakiko said. She sounded as though the fact of it enraged her even further.

"No I'm not," Louise replied, "but I am pretty drunk still."

"Get into your cell," Sakiko ordered.

Louise shrugged. "Sure." A Jaffa guard opened the door and she stepped through, Sakiko following. "I don't suppose I could get a change of... "

There was a sharp hiss and a flash of red-gold light burned a hole in one of the couches.

"What are you?" Sakiko demanded. "What do you offer him?"

Louise turned and faced the Bushi again, feeling less confident this time. "Why don't you ask him? I don't know. Maybe he just wants Jonas to see that he can hurt people he cared about. Always assuming that Jonas did care," she added.

"And why do you fight him, if you are so scared?"

"Because... " Louise thought about that for a moment. It _would_ be easier to give in, and who would ever judge her for it? She was a civilian, a student, not a soldier trained to resist terror and torture.

Eventually, she looked up. "Because it's what Jonas would have done," she replied.

Sakiko spun on her heel and stalked out. The door slammed closed behind her, but Louise thought that she might have made some kind of connection. After all, it was only a few minutes before the handmaiden who had dressed her brought a change of clothes.

*

_The Stargate Facility_

The Stargate had been set in place in the Threshold through sliding doors in the roof. These had then been sealed for the sake of security, but as soon as he had realised that the DHD would have to be brought in the same way, Lenaux had ordered the welds cut open and the hydraulics reconnected. By the time Kianna Cyr brought the Goa'uld shuttle into place above the Threshold, the doors gaped wide and the DHD was lowered easily down into place.

"For all the good it does us," Lenaux admitted sourly when Leleth and Kianna had made their way to the control room.

"I don't understand," Leleth admitted. "The SEG may have just declared war on Kelowna and we still can't make the damn thing work?"

A man turned from the control consoles. He wore a lab coat, but stood like a soldier, and his face was as lean and hard as a hatchet blade. "Oh, we can make it work, Lance-Colonel," he assured her. "What we can't do is send anyone after Mr Quinn and the unfortunate Miss Stillwell. The memory core of the dialling computer has been destroyed."

Molly MacVeigh heaved herself out from underneath the console. "And Subaltern Dale does mean destroyed," she added. "When we tried to winkle out the transmission logs, a small charge turned the motherboard to slag; we don't even have the monitor files."

Lenaux growled a few choice swearwords in Patris, his provincial tongue. "That's my fault," he admitted. "I told him how you found Tai's tracks; he must have wanted to make sure we didn't find him the same way."

"He probably knew already," Molly reassured him.

"Now there's no way of knowing where he went," Dale announced.

"You could try analysing the switching buffers for residual data records."

Half a dozen pairs of eyes turned at the quiet voce from the doorway.

"I didn't mean to overhear," Dr Kha assured them nervously, "but they said I could find you here, Assistant Director Lenaux. I've been at the Facility for some time now and if you do not need to speak to me urgently there is work I should be doing in the Colony."

"Just a moment," Lenaux said. "What's this about residual data?"

Kha coughed, nervously. "Goa'uld crystals store data as internally-reflected light. Even when the power is disconnected, the reflections are not erased. The switching buffer crystals should still hold the records of the last few transfers. It won't be much, but if you could cross-reference the data with the directory... "

Lenaux held up a hand. "Good enough for me. Dr Eudora Kha, this is Subaltern Philo Dale of the Terranian Military Science Corps."

"We met on the transport from Terrania," Kha noted. Dale glowered at her.

"Subaltern; give Dr Kha whatever assistance she needs."

"With respect, sir," Dale said, "Dr Kha is a hydrologist, not a computer technician."

"Well you're a nuclear engineer," Lenaux replied. "I'm sure the two of you can work something out."

Kha cleared her throat shyly. "I do have some understanding of crystal computer technology," she said. "I worked with Academician Élite Liena Thursby on several theoretical papers on the subject and have recently spent three months comparing our projections to the control systems of a Goa'uld spacecraft. I have also written postdoctoral theses on optical data storage, residual photo-detection and probabilistic data reconstruction."

Molly laughed. "I bet you never played football after school."

"I... No," Kha admitted.

Lenaux shrugged. "So we won't be picking you for sports, Dr Kha," he agreed, "but for now, get working on those crystals. Dale and MacVeigh, you're with Dr Cyr on the DHD. Even if we can't get the co-ordinates we need we can at least tell the SGC that we've lost their civilian before they have to start asking questions."

"Yes, Sir," Dale replied reluctantly.

"As for you," Lenaux went on, pointing directly at Leleth. "You can explain what you meant about war."

"Well, there is the teeniest question mark over the paperwork for the DHD's removal," Leleth admitted.

*

_Skandra_

Se-Osiris had studied Osiris' plans and notes in great detail and he liked what he had read. It promised great things.

"We must move swiftly," he told the commander of the Jaffa garrison; the commander's deputy stood listening as well. "I will need you to gather the other forces that My Lord Osiris has concealed for my use. Then we will begin our work; a few swift raids and we shall regain control of much of Lord Osiris' territory in a matter of weeks."

"Do you believe that you can supplant Lord Anubis?" the Jaffa asked.

Se-Osiris paused a moment in thought. "Even My Lord could not do that, but we shall take control of her domains and supplant the pretender Lamia."

"Lady Lamia was My Lord's chosen successor," the Jaffa pointed out.

As quick as a striking snake, se-Osiris lashed out and caught the Jaffa by the throat. "A successor only takes control following the death of her predecessor. Lamia's claim to dominion is based on a falsehood. You will not speak of it again." This was certainly true, for even as he spoke, se-Osiris' powerful hand crushed the Jaffa's windpipe. He released his throat with an air of disinterest, allowing the body to topple to the ground. "Do you understand?" he asked, his eyes lighting on the deputy.

"Y-yes, my master."

"Good. Then ensure that the security measures that I asked for are in place and then take a squad to round up the other forces."

"Yes, my master."

The Jaffa bowed and backed from the room. Se-Osiris turned back to his cabinet and poured a drink. He did not turn at a soft step in the doorway, but he did switch his drink to his right hand to free up his ribbon device.

"Master?"

"Sakiko."

"The girl offers nothing to your consort," Sakiko said. "Her devotion will not affect your consort and her body is unsuitable."

Se-Osiris chuckled. "I am rather taken with her body myself. If there is weakness in her, my consort shall work that out." He turned to face his chatelaine and licked his lips lasciviously. "I look forward to seeing that body with a little of the fat burned off."

"Let me take her place," Sakiko begged. "My prim'ta can be sacrificed and I will bear your consort."

Se-Osiris gave a cruel laugh. "Your desperation amuses me too much to bury it beneath my consort's will," he assured her. "Besides, for a Goa'uld to take control of a Jaffa is difficult; for one of my kind it would be impossible." He strode towards Sakiko and laid a possessive hand on her hip. "Do not fear that poor, soft Louise will not be worthy of my consort; she will not be my equal. It is one of My Lord Osiris' more brilliant adaptations. Each generation of the Galloglas is instinctively subservient to their parents; indeed, their loyalty is maintained by a telepathic bond, recreated from the genome of the Kohnsan yell hounds. She envisaged squads of Galloglas warriors, led by their parent and bound by this link; coordinated and unstoppable."

The Galloglas threw his glass aside and caressed Sakiko's face. "The Jaffa's days are numbered, my pretty one. We are the future warriors of the Goa'uld."

Sakiko's heart thundered in fear. "Then what will become of me?"

"Some we shall keep, to carry the next generation of Goa'uld. I am sure that you will persuade someone to look after you." He caught her hair and dragged her head backwards.

"Master... "

"Hold your tongue or I will take it from you," se-Osiris purred. He bent his head and forced a cruel, hard kiss on her mouth.

*

_The Stargate Facility_

Kha stared at the screen for a long moment, hardly believing what she was seeing. "Yes!" she gasped. "I have it."

Dale hurried over and leaned on the back of her chair. He had spent much of the day looming over Kha like this, aggressively asserting his superiority. He was a military scientist, rather than one of the élite, and it was clear that a month spent working as Academician Tai's assistant had eroded his respect for the august body of the Scientific Élite.

"It's... gibberish," he accused.

Kha shook her head. "No; it's just the basic machine code for the dialling protocols."

"And can _you_ read it?" Dale demanded snidely.

"Of course not, but the dialling program can. If they've managed to replace the components and install the backup dialling code, we can run these through and get the corresponding Gate address."

"Well, I think they've got the system set up, but the interface is fried. We can't open the Gate using the computer."

Kha tapped out a few commands and slipped the crystal from its socket. "But we can open it using the dialling device once we have the coordinates. Let's go and have a look."

 

Lenaux examined the numbers on the screen. Kha and Dale sat at separate consoles; Kha was relaxed, but Dale seemed determined to find the directory entry for the planet first. Lenaux was aware that Dale had been badly treated by the Goa'uld in Nastasi Tai and he seemed set on taking it out on Kha.

"Nothing," he said. "There's no directory entry for this world, which means that we can't acquire a set of coordinates from the database."

"It's called Skandra," Kha corrected. "SGC designation P8D-936; Echelon G entry. According to the records it's a post-industrial hellhole which houses a disused Goa'uld facility."

Dale stared at her. "It's not in the database!" he insisted.

"No," Kha agreed. "You told me earlier that your intruder had wiped a part of the database, so I've referred the reference numbers for those switching codes to the new version of the database that we downloaded from the SGC less than an hour ago. Skandra is one of the erased addresses in Echelon G."

"Echelon G?" Lenaux asked.

"The addresses entered on the information of Dr Sarah Gardner, former host of the Goa'uld Osiris," Dale explained, before Kha could speak.

Lenaux nodded. "I'll call Lance-Colonel Aaen and put the team together. Subaltern Dale, get a probe prepped for advance recon."

"Sir." Dale was out of the door in a heartbeat.

"Assistant Director," Kha said shyly.

"Chief," Lenaux corrected. "Everyone just calls me Chief."

"I am sorry, Chief. But I was going to say that the records show that the SGC never explored this world on account of an iris shield protecting the wormhole."

Lenaux swore. "Well, there might be a deactivation code. Use the DHD to contact Earth and see what else they can tell us. Just... try not offer them too much in return; they bargain like horse traders."

*

_Skandra_

In her first week as the chatelaine of the facility on Skandra, Sakiko had sent out several servants to scour the markets of the empire for Yoman artefacts to decorate her chamber. In what had been designed as a walk-in wardrobe for the well-dressed Goa'uld she had constructed a small shrine and dedicated it to her ancestors, in particular her murdered father. In the fashion of the Bushi, she used this shrine as a place of seclusion in which to perform her kelno'reem meditations.

She sat cross-legged in this shrine, her eyes closed and her wrists resting lightly on her knees, but although she controlled her breathing and her heartbeat, the peace of kelno'reem eluded her and her hands were trembling.

As the servant of the Daimyo, Sakiko had experienced her share of violence at the hands of men; the komuso from whom Jonas Quinn had rescued her had not been the first to assault her and not all had been thwarted. Never before, however, had she suffered such cruelty as she had been subjected to by se-Osiris. Perhaps fearing that she had still harboured thoughts that something of Jonas Quinn survived in him, he had ravaged her mercilessly.

Her body ached, but the physical pain was as nothing to the ache in her spirit. She had betrayed Jonas Quinn, who had saved her, for the sake of a creature without honour. She had sacrificed her own integrity and her soul was in turmoil.

With a sigh, she rose to her feet and left the shrine.

 

Louise spent a long time washing herself, trying in vain to wash away her confusion. Feling physically clean, if emotionally scarred and spiritually sullied, she dressed in her new clothes – a simple handmaiden's gown of gold-embroidered, white silk – and returned to the main chamber.

Sakiko stood waiting for her. "Are the clothes to your liking, Miss Stillwell?" she asked.

"Thank you, yes," Louise replied. "A little tight around the waist and bosom, but that's my problem as much as the dress's."

"You show little fear."

"Well, I know you won't harm me, however much you want to," Louise replied, "although mostly I think I'm still in a state of shock. I've gone beyond terror into a sort of denial. Sooner or later, I imagine I'll curl into a ball and start singing lullabies to myself."

"I doubt it."

"Dinner was superb," Louise said. "I'm really, really sorry for what I did to it."

"I have been punished for serving food that did not suit your stomach," Sakiko replied.

"No! He didn't... "

"I was favoured," Sakiko proudly interrupted. "My master administered the punishment with his own hand."

Louise sat down on the scorch-marked couch; she did not think that she could remain standing. "You poor cow," she muttered. "I thought Steve was a bastard, but this... "

"He is my master and it is his right... his _duty_ to punish my failings."

"Trust me, sweetheart; it was the company, not the food." Louise looked at Sakiko; her vision wobbled as her eyes filled up with tears. "You love him, don't you?"

"I... I do not... I thought that I would," Sakiko replied.

"Did you... Did you love Jonas?"

"Perhaps."

"Did he love you?" Louise whispered. It would hurt to hear it, but somehow she had to know.

Sakiko studied Louise for a long moment. Her eyes were hard and cruel, but as they held the younger woman's gaze, they softened with compassion. "I believe that he would have given his life for me," she replied, "but he did not love me. In fact, he... refused me."

It was clear to Louise that this was a difficult admission for Sakiko.

"That can't happen often," she offered and she meant it; like so many favoured Jaffa, Sakiko was truly beautiful.

"It happened once only," Sakiko agreed. "And of course, I wanted him all the more because of it. Now, by my doing, he is gone forever."

"No!" Louise protested.

"He is _not_ a Goa'uld, Miss Stillwell. My Lord Osiris created him to be a soldier, ruthless and utterly loyal to her; she would allow no sentiment of the host to interfere in that, not after her own weakness for Daniel Jackson caused her so much trouble. There will be nothing of Jonas in him. Do not speak of My Lord Osiris' death to him," she added darkly. "He will not be gentle, even with you."

"Why do you care?" Louise asked. "I thought you hated me?"

"I do," Sakiko agreed. "He may be cruel and loveless, but his attention is all I have left. However, what you said caused me to question my own actions and I have been reflecting. I believe that Jonas Quinn cared for you and that I owe a debt to his memory for my betrayal. If my master orders me to harm you, I shall do so, but until that time I shall keep you from harm. I believe that that is what Jonas Quinn would have done."

"Thank you," Louise whispered.

"Do not thank me. It shall be little enough."

*

_Stargate Command_

"Dr Eudora Kha?"

Kha stood on the ramp and looked around herself in a daze.

"Dr Kha?"

She looked down and saw a man standing in front of her. He had light brown hair and the eyes behind his glasses were kind and smiling, although his expression was serious. "Yes," she replied at last.

"Welcome to the SGC," the man said. "I'm Dr Daniel Jackson. Please come this way."

"Thank you," Kha replied. "Do you have the information that we need?"

"Not yet, but we're getting close. You'll understand that we are deeply worried for Louise, and for Jonas of course, but Dr Gardner's access to Osiris' knowledge is incomplete and the process is painful for her."

Kha nodded her understanding, but she was operating outside her not inconsiderable sphere of expertise and felt very lost and alone. She was very silent as she followed Dr Jackson from the Gateroom, along cold, grey corridors to a small room with a steel door. A woman with curly blonde hair sat within, looking about in a state of some distraction.

"Dr Eudora Kha, this is Dr Sarah Gardner," Jackson explained.

"Dr Kha." Dr Gardner rose to her feet and Kha saw that she was taller even than Lance-Colonel Aaen.

Kha swallowed hard, somewhat awed by the woman. "Hello," she replied.

"Have you thought of anything?" Jackson asked gently.

Gardner shook her head. The motion tossed her hair aside and Kha saw that there was a tiny metal disc fixed to her temple. "It is difficult. There were things that Osiris worked very hard to hide from me. She always suspected that you might find a way to free me one day and so she took steps against that eventuality."

"Like Paris?"

Gardner nodded and, although Kha was sure that her confusion must be clear to see, neither of them made any attempt to explain. Instead, they simply stared fixedly at one another, sharing some deep, emotional bond that made Kha feel confused and lost; such things were quite alien to her upbringing.

"Then... Skandra was one of the things that she hid?" Kha asked shyly, feeling guilty for breaking the moment.

Gardner looked away from Jackson. "Yes," she explained. "I can feel the name in the back of my mind; it was important to her when she died, but that is all I know."

"Have... Have you tried hypnotism?" Kha offered. "Terranian studies have shown it to be quite effective in retrieving buried or suppressed memories."

"We have considered it," Jackson agreed, "but we don't have a qualified hypnotherapist on call."

"I will do what I can to remember," Gardner assured her, "but I can't promise you anything. I suppose that we _could_ try to find a hypnotist."

Kha gave a nervous cough. Jackson and Gardner looked at her.

"Dr Kha?" Jackson asked.

"I participated in a study of hypnotic regression therapy a few years ago," Kha explained. "As part of the study, I took some training in hypnotism."

" _You_ could hypnotise me?" Gardner asked.

"If you let me," Kha replied. "I can not hypnotise anyone who is unwilling."

Gardner looked afraid. "I don't know," she admitted.

Jackson stood by her chair and took her hand. "Sarah; Louise needs your help."

Gardner looked stricken. "But I don't want to remember."

"Please." The gentle eyes looked out from behind their glasses and even Kha, who watched only from the side, trembled to think what those eyes might be able to do. Her teacher in hypnotism, Lector Liya Batul, had told Kha that no hypnotic ability could make a person do something that they did not want to do, but she was sure that the lector had never met anyone like Dr Jackson.

"Alright," Gardner agreed; she had never stood a chance. "I'll do it."

 

Kha tucked her hair behind her ears and sat up straight. Gardner sat in a chair in front of her, her obvious nervousness seeming odd in someone so very tall.

"So, do I look into your eyes or is there a swinging watch?"

"Neither," Kha replied firmly. "Close your eyes and take deep, slow breaths."

Gardner shared a look of surprise with Jackson, confused, as so many were, to see Kha shed her nervousness and diffidence when she knew what she was doing.

"Close your eyes," Kha repeated. "Forget where you are and listen only to my voice. Only to my voice."

"Right."

"And don't speak unless I tell you to; just _listen_!"

Gardner swallowed nervously. "Yes, ma'am," she agreed.

"Alright. Listen to my voice, Sarah Gardner. Only to my voice. You are in darkness; warm and safe, surrounded by peace. You _feel_ safe and sheltered. You are protected. No harm can come to you here. Now: What is your name?"

"Sarah," she replied.

"Your full name."

"Sarah Madeleine Gardner."

"Good. You are in darkness; warm and safe, surrounded by peace. You feel safe and sheltered. You are protected. No harm can come to you here. What was your mother's name?"

"Abigail Enid Fox."

"And your father?"

"Clive Matthew Gardner."

"Excellent. You are in darkness, Sarah; warm and safe, surrounded by peace." Her voice was soft and steady. Daniel felt himself growing drowsy as he listened to it and he had to force himself to keep his eyes open.

"Where were you born?" Kha asked.

Gardner's voice was growing softer, sinking into a whisper. "Winchester."

"What is the first thing that you remember?"

"I am in my bed, looking at a mobile swinging above me," she replied. "There is a falcon there. I remember the falcon. I will remember it when I first see pictures of Horus."

Kha nodded in some satisfaction. "Now, go back. The darkness is different. You are still protected, but there is another here. You can hear her thoughts. Her name is Sarah Madeleine Gardner."

Daniel made to interrupt, but a fierce glare from Kha silenced him.

"Her name is Sarah Madeleine Gardner; can you feel her?"

"Yes." Gardner's voice had changed, becoming harder. "I feel her."

"What is your name?"

There was a short pause. "I am the Lord Osiris se-Ra, God-King of Khem, Right Hand of the Sun, Lord of the Underworld and God of the Dead."

"Good," Kha said uncertainly. "What is your mother's name?"

"Queen Hathor, Light of the Heavens and Mistress of a Thousand Delights."

"And is that her maiden name?" Jackson wondered aloud.

"She was no maiden," Gardner assured her, while Kha shot Jackson another glower.

"What was your father's name?"

"Supreme Lord Ra, the Sun God and God of Gods."

"What is your first memory?"

"I remember a primitive ape, the first of its kind to be blessed with the gift of blending. I remember its fear, its wit." Gardner licked her lips as though remembering some particularly delicious meal. "I remember the unexpected delight of its means of procreation."

Kha blushed bright red. Jackson looked almost as awkward, but also concerned. He leaned close to Kha and whispered. "Get what you can and bring her out. We mustn't leave her this deep in the genetic memories or Sarah will be overwhelmed."

Kha nodded and turned her attention back to Gardner, who had adopted a haughty expression that made her seem even taller.

"Come forward. Tell me about Skandra," she instructed.

"Skandra is one of the seats of my vengeance. There, servants and weapons await the coming of my ultimate new breed of Goa'uld, to be used to ensure that the name of Osiris shall endure, even if the Tau'ri or Anubis should succeed in killing me."

"What are the new breed?"

Gardner smiled proudly. "I call them my Galloglas," she replied. "They are my perfect warriors; swift to breed, unsullied by sentiment and as great in loyalty as in strength. They create their own followers from their flesh, spawning legions from a single master symbiote and all answering, ultimately, to that master symbiote. They shall be my vengeance on the Tau'ri, the Jaffa and on my enemies among the Goa'uld.

"And where are they?" Kha asked urgently.

"Growing. Already growing. My Galloglas have been placed in the bodies of my enemies; the handmaiden of Lord Baal, one of Lady Bastet's vassal-chieftains, Jonas Quinn of SG-1. They will grow and take command of these enemies and make them my agents of revenge."

"Oh my gods."

Gardner's eyes snapped open and they flashed with rage. "Only one god! _I_ shall be the only god!"

"Close your eyes," Kha insisted, showing admirable calm in the face of Osiris' loathing. "Close your eyes and go back into the dark. Enemies are coming; you must go back to where it is safe."

Apparently the sense of this penetrated the Goa'uld's anger and her eyes closed.

"Good. Now, there is another in the darkness with you. Her name is Lord Osiris se-Ra, God-King of Khem, Right Hand of the Sun, Lord of the Underworld and God of the Dead. Can you feel her presence?"

"Yes," Gardner replied. "Yes. I can feel her presence."

"Alright. You must come out of the darkness now."

"Oh my God, she is so strong. I can't... She will see me!"

"She is moving away. You must come out now and you will escape her," Kha insisted. "There is a light ahead of you. Look at that light; focus on the light and ignore everything else."

"She is coming!"

"Look into the light!"

"The light, I... Yes," she sighed, suddenly becoming calm. "Yes. The light."

"Now, come to the light, Sarah Madeleine Gardner. Follow my voice into the light. Come out into the light and open your eyes _now_!"

Gardner's eyes snapped open. "Can I speak now?" she asked.

"Yes, Dr Gardner," Kha replied. "You may do as you wish."

"Are you alright?" Jackson asked.

Gardner nodded. "Fine. I'm just sorry I couldn't help. I guess I'm just too uncomfortable with her memories."

Kha gave her a measured look. "What do you remember?" she asked.

"You asked me my name, and about my parents, and then... " Gardner shivered. "I could feel _her_ inside my mind again, and then I was awake."

"And you can recall nothing else about Skandra?"

"Nothing. I am sorry. We could try again if... "

"No!" Kha interrupted. "No; I don't think that would be a good idea. Not so soon, anyway."

"And you were very helpful," Jackson assured her. "We learned a lot."

"Really?" Gardner sounded truly startled.

Kha nodded. "It is unusual for a person who is mesmerised to remember much of what they say," she assured the tall woman.

"Then, you can rescue Miss Stillwell and Mr Quinn?"

Neither Kha nor Jackson could meet her gaze.

*

_Skandra_

The Stargate opened. The Jaffa stood to attention, lifting their staff weapons to firing position.

"Kree, control?" the commander of the garrison – formerly the deputy commander – asked.

"Receiving signal," the Jaffa at the control console behind the dialling device replied. "I can confirm command override; it is one of Lord Osiris' successors."

"Lower the shield."

With a flicker, the energy shield in front of the event horizon shimmered and vanished. The wormhole rippled and a tall, stately woman stepped out. "Kree, Jaffa... " she began, but she was cut off by a barrage of plasma fire. She staggered back, dying, and disappeared into the wrong end of the wormhole.

 

Louise was appalled. "He had her gunned down? In cold blood?"

"He says that his offspring will be subservient to him," Sakiko explained. "He has ordered that any other 'Galloglas' should be killed on emerging from the wormhole."

"But why... ?" Louise began. She broke off and munched on a slice of tamagoyaki. "Of course," she realised. "If they were of a superior generation, they would take control from him. He is not the original."

"Much as he may claim so with his 'se-Osiris'."

"The son of Osiris," Louise mused.

"So when any other arrives he has them shot down and – if they do not fall into the wormhole – gutted. He only allows them to arrive at all so that he can mark them off Lord Osiris' roster."

"How can he be so ruthless?"

"Because he is not Jonas Quinn." Sakiko jumped up. "Finish your food!" she barked. "He is coming and will not allow you the leisure."

Hastily, Louise shovelled away the last of Sakiko's excellent breakfast. She rose to her feet as the door opened and se-Osiris strode in.

"You have eaten," he noted. "Superb; you shall need your strength for the transference. Sakiko, you shall see to the preparations. I wish Louise to be purified and ready in two hours."

"Two hours!" Louise wailed.

"You shall soon be freed of the burdens of consciousness and free will," he assured her.

"Please, don't do this!" she begged, abandoning all pretence of dignity. She flung herself to her knees in front of his and clutched at his hands. "Please, Jonas!"

Se-Osiris shoved her roughly away. She tried to scramble towards him, but Sakiko caught her arms and held her tight.

"Don't," she whispered. "Don't lower yourself."

"But I don't want to die," Louise snivelled.

"Jonas can not hear you. There is no pity in se-Osiris. If there is no salvation, face the inevitable with courage."

"I can't."

Se-Osiris gave a dark chuckle. "Such weakness," he sneered. "I will be glad when that pitiful, snivelling fear is purged from you."

"Jonas... "

"No!" he barked. "There is no Jonas. The Galloglas does not blend with the host, I merely wrest all control of his nervous system and tap into his memories. Jonas has no influence over me." A slow, cruel smile crept over his expression. "Come here, Sakiko."

Sakiko steadied Louise and released her. Louise caught her arm. "Don't," she whispered.

"I am Bushi," Sakiko sighed. "I serve." She shook herself free and crossed to stand by her master.

Se-Osiris clutched Sakiko's arm in a vicelike grip. "Sakiko has experienced first hand that Jonas has no control over me. Is that not so?"

"Yes, Master."

With his free hand, se-Osiris stroked the Bushi's face and trailed his fingers down her breast. "She is my faithful servant, my willing slave and my eager paramour," he murmured.

Sakiko closed her eyes and shuddered with a mixture of desire and disgust. Louise stared in horrid fascination.

With sudden violence, se-Osiris thrust his hand into Sakiko's shirt. The Jaffa squirmed and struggled, but could not free herself from se-Osiris' grasp. He wrenched his hand free, gripping a writhing prim'ta in a bloody fist. He flung the girl down, lifted the prim'ta to his lips and tore its head off with his teeth. As Sakiko slumped on the floor at his feet, se-Osiris sucked the juices from the torn stump of the Goa'uld's neck.

"She will die in agony," se-Osiris growled, discarding the dead larva as dismissively as he had the Jaffa who carried it. "You know that Jonas could not do this."

With a sob, Louise collapsed forwards, but se-Osiris caught her by the upper arms. "He is gone and soon you will be gone too," he laughed. "Perhaps in a way you will be together at last, although I doubt he would even notice." He pulled her close and nuzzled his face against her throat. "Never mind purification," he purred. "I think that I should _sully_ you instead."

Louise whimpered as he caught her in a crushing embrace. He stooped to kiss her and memory brought out one last scrap of resistance. Once more she rose to meet his kiss and her teeth latched onto his lower lip with enough force to draw blood.

Se-Osiris recoiled with a scream, but this time Louise refused to let go. He struggled to bring his ribbon device in between them and, as soon as she had the space, Louise brought her knee up between his legs. He ripped free of her teeth and staggered away. Even in such pain he was able to block Louise's right cross, but her left hook caught him hard on the chin.

His head spinning and his eyes watering, se-Osiris backed away from the savage hellion that he had thought conquered. A birthing pain swept through his abdomen, overriding even the agony in his groin, and he clutched at it. As his vision cleared he saw Louise kneeling by the fallen Jaffa, holding Sakiko's beam pistol in a two-handed grip. Tears streamed down her face and she had blood on her lips.

"Damn you!" he roared.

"Stay back!"

Se-Osiris took a step forward.

"I will shoot," Louise warned.

"You will not," he assured her with a harsh chuckle. "You love Jonas Quinn; you will not bring him to harm."

Louise's face fixed in an expression of grim desperation. "You have no idea what love is," she told him, and as he lifted his ribbon device she shot him.

*

_The Stargate Facility_

Dr Kha had barely left the Threshold when the Stargate opened again.

"What now?" Kianna demanded.

"SGC code," Dale replied. "No radio contact."

"Stand by the Tumbler," Kianna ordered.

The event horizon rippled and three figures fell out in a tangled heap. "Medic!" one of them was calling. "Medic!"

"Louise!" Sergeant MacVeigh ran from the DHD to the stricken group. As she reached them, one of the three fell backwards, revealing his pallid face to the control room.

"Jonas!" Kianna gasped.

*

Jonas groaned as he came back to consciousness. He had experienced greater discomfort, when he woke up after his brain surgery, but it was a close call.

"What is the last thing that you remember?"

Jonas groaned. "I'm not sure... I was put into the CAT scanner and... that was pretty much it." He opened his eyes and looked up. "Of course, that might have been in my imagination."

Sakiko shook her head. "It was not."

"How did you get here?" Jonas asked. He shook his head and, when that didn't make him vomit, he sat up. Pain blossomed across his stomach and he fell back.

"Easy," Sakiko crooned, soothingly. She slid an arm behind his back, lifted him and put a pillow behind him.

Jonas settled back on the pillow and lifted an arm to grip Sakiko's shoulder. "It's good to see you, Sakiko," he told her. "I was afraid Osiris would have killed you." He shook his head again. "I never should have left you on her ship."

Sakiko hung her head. "You left me in my right place," she told him. "I had already entered Lord Osiris' service and betrayed you to her. Because of what I did, a mutant Goa'uld using your body almost killed me and implanted one of its own kind in Louise Stillwell."

Jonas' mouth hung open for a second, even his superb brain having difficulty processing so much new information at once. "Huh?" he said at last.

With her eyes fixed on the edge of his blanket, Sakiko told him all that had happened, or as much as she knew. She painted herself as a coward and a traitor and praised Louise Stillwell for her courage, ingenuity and loyalty.

"Louise shot me?" Jonas asked at last.

"She shot the Galloglas symbiote in your abdomen," Sakiko corrected. "Fortunately, according to Dr Cyr, the naquadah which se-Osiris had injected into himself in order to facilitate his use of the ribbon device was concentrated in his symbiote body. The naquadah absorbed much of the energy from my particle beam pistol and, although se-Osiris and his 'consort' were destroyed, you suffered only major damage to a few of your organs."

"Only? Which ones?"

"The liver, kidney and small intestine," Sakiko replied. "The injury would still have been fatal, had not the SGC donated a quantity of a substance called tretonin to boost your immune system and recuperative powers. You were also aided by one of the... " She paused and continued in a superstitious whisper: "Of the _Tok'ra_ , who used a healing device on you."

Jonas groaned. "They're going to hold that over me forever," he sighed. "Any time they need a fall guy it'll be 'remember how we saved your life that time'."

"General O'Neill sent a message for you."

"Try not to get into any more trouble?" Jonas guessed.

Sakiko shook her head. "He said that 'your people might be a bunch of twenty-four carat asses, but we owe you this one at least. I figure the Tok'ra do too.'"

"That's sweet of him."

"The SGC were also kind enough to provide a quantity of tretonin to support me, now that my symbiote is gone from within me."

"In spite of everything, I'm glad you're okay, Sakiko," Jonas admitted.

Sakiko bowed her head, gravely. "And I am glad that I have not destroyed one who sought only to aid me," she said. "I do not know what will become of me hereafter; they have allowed me to tend you during your recovery, but I have committed grave offences against you and against others. I would like to make some reparation, if I may."

"There's no need, really," Jonas assured her, shifting his body away from her.

Sakiko smiled gently. "I did not mean it that way, Jonas Quinn. Indeed; I have a gift for you that would make it impossible. Louise Stillwell is sleeping now; I will wake her when I leave, for she will want to see you now that you are awake."

Jonas grinned.

"Do you care for her?" Sakiko asked.

"I do," Jonas replied. "She's quite a woman."

"Indeed she is, and quite in love with you."

Jonas was startled. "What?" he asked.

"She is in love with you, Jonas Quinn, and se-Osiris used her shamefully because of it. How else could she have struck so truly at a target that she could not see?" Sakiko challenged.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"On Yomi there was a tale of a woman who married a hunter. One day when he was out hunting, her husband was attacked by three bandits. They each cut him with a knife and would have killed him, but the woman saw the bloody cuts appear on his second best shirt where it hung to dry. Snatching up a bow, she ran outside and fired three times into the forest, once for each cut. She could not see her husband, but the arrows flew true and struck down his assailants, for love guided her aim. It was her love for you that enabled Louise Stillwell to save you."

"More like luck," Jonas demurred.

Sakiko's eyes flashed a challenge. "Do you love her?"

"I... I don't know," Jonas admitted. "I'd... never thought about her that way."

"Had you not?"

Jonas blushed.

"Then you had. What were your thoughts?"

"Private," he said firmly.

Sakiko nodded once. "There is happiness there, if you wish for it. I shall send her in to you; be gentle, for she has suffered much."

 _She has suffered?_ Jonas thought to himself. _She was the one who shot me_. But the idea was just so absurd that he found it impossible to dwell on it. It was not possible that Louise could have shot him, just as it was not possible that she felt so strongly towards him. _It is impossible. Isn't it?_

There was a gentle knock at the door. Jonas looked up and felt his heart leap.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Louise replied.

*

_Six days later_

Of course they had had to arrest him; Rebus understood that. When push came to shove, he had used bribery, corruption and forgery to gain access to the Kelownan government's most prized possession – the one Stargate-related artefact that they had not surrendered to the JRC's control. The SEG would have had no choice but to arrest him and he had a feeling that this time he would get more than a slap on the wrist and a demotion. In a way it made him feel better. He knew that Deva Lal's organisation had been rounded up as soon as Melko started singing and he would have felt bad not to share their fate.

When the door opened and Lance-Colonel Aaen entered, Rebus stood; he was still a soldier for the time being.

"Sit," Aaen instructed. "Dr Kha tells me that you came to her with the idea of decrypting Senior Sergeant Lal's unauthorised comm. log to find out who was trying to infiltrate the project by force," she noted.

"Yes, Ma'am," he acknowledged when a response seemed to be expected.

"It _was_ your idea?"

"No, Ma'am."

"Then why did you say yes?"

"Begging your pardon, Ma'am, but you didn't ask a question. You told me what you understood and it was not for me to correct you without prompting."

"Very well," Aaen said. "So if it wasn't your idea, tell me what happened."

"I went to Dr Kha and asked her if it would be possible to copy the log. It was she who said that it would be encrypted and it was she who volunteered to make and decrypt the copy while I provided a distraction. I had planned to try to do so myself."

"And why was that?"

"Ma'am?"

"You are a convicted black marketer. You should have been keeping well away from Senior Sergeant Lal. If you ignored good sense – as you seemed set on doing – you should at least have kept your head down. Instead you courted discovery and brought Lal's entire ring into the open. Why take that risk?"

"Because I thought it was the right thing to do," Rebus admitted.

"Explain."

"I believe in this project, Ma'am. Maybe not its particular goals, but what it stands for. I have friends in most of the nations on this good planet; enemies too, but I've enough of them in Kelowna not to hold it against anyone on racial grounds. I wanted to make sure all this didn't fall down before it started because some insecure Sergeant-at-Arms didn't like taking orders from a woman."

"You were in the intelligence corps during the last open conflict with Terrania, weren't you?" Of course, Aaen knew this; it was all in his file.

"Yes, Ma'am. Recruited from basic training."

"How did you get that assignment? It's usually only officers who get recruited straight to intelligence."

"The corps recognised my special skills, ma'am."

"Which are."

Rebus gave a cheeky grin. "In the words of my dear old mother, I'm a devious little bastard."

Aaen raised one eyebrow. "I think I might have liked your mother."

"May I speak freely, Ma'am?" Rebus asked.

"Please do."

"I would like to speak in defence of Senior Sergeant Lal," he explained. "Sergeant-at-Arms Melko was working directly for his handler in the espionage business; the Senior Sergeant was uninvolved and actually helped to prevent his last act of sabotage. Her only real offence – well, aside from black marketeering – was thinking she was too smart to get caught out by a dope like Melko."

"Which she wasn't."

"Nobody's too smart to get caught from time to time. She knows that now; I was just lucky enough to learn it a little earlier."

Aaen nodded in understanding. "Well, I wouldn't worry about the senior sergeant. She'll be transferred from the garrison and stripped of rank, but I doubt she'll do any worse by the court martial than you did. After all, she does seem to have dumped everything that might have been particularly incriminating and there's only so much punishment you can justify for a few thousand tins of finest crab meat."

Rebus did not bother to hide his pleasure at the news. He had not spoken to Lal after they had stopped Meko and Gentle and he had been worried that she might have been caught with military hardware in her lock-up.

"As for you... "

"Ma'am."

"Come with me."

*

Leleth led the way from the cells to her office in the main administrative wing of the facility. As per her orders, Dr Kha and the Jaffa, Sakiko, were waiting for her. They stood as she entered, but sat down again when settled herself behind the desk.

"Take a seat Adjutant," she invited.

Badon stayed standing until Leleth swept up a set of adjutant's stripes from her desktop and flung them at him. "That's you, handsome," she assured him. "As of now, you are restored to your former rank and promoted to full adjutant in recognition of time served and your ability to act independently and responsibly to meet the demands of all theatres of service."

Badon stared at the stripes in his hand for a long moment and then saluted. "Thank you, Ma'am," he said.

Leleth waved away his gratitude. "Just sit down and listen. You all need to show me you can do that, because there's no place on my team for people who can't listen. Now... Yes, Dr Kha?"

"Excuse me, but did you say 'your team'?"

"No," Leleth replied, "I said ' _my_ team'. Of the four people assigned to the main body of Expeditionary Force Unit 1, two were engaged in an unprofessional relationship... " She paused for a moment. "Actually, the other two were as well, but we won't mention that any more than we will ever mention a Goa'uld infestation of our Director, stolen cigars or unauthorised investigations into black market activities and sabotage in the Colony. One of the other two members of the team proved to be a Goa'uld spy and was killed," she went on, with barely a trace of the burning shame and distress that she felt. "Officially, this agent was responsible for injuring Director Quinn."

"And unofficially?" Badon asked.

"All in good time. This has left a space at the top of the field roster," she explained. "Director Quinn gave me permission to pick my own team and I've picked you. Before you ask, Dr Kha, I chose you because you may just be an average élite, but to a poor, simple ranger, you are ludicrously overqualified for any other job on this island. Sakiko, you have proven your integrity and the Director can not speak highly enough of the advantages of having a Jaffa on your team."

"I thank you for your trust in me," Sakiko said. "I shall not fail you while I draw breath, my lady."

Leleth was about to warn Sakiko against hollow words, but she realised just in time that there was nothing hollow about them. "Thank you," she said, mirroring Sakiko's formal earnestness. "As for the adjutant... Well, as I told him, a bad man is hard to find; one that you can trust is even more so. I have my own reasons to think him trustworthy and Dr Kha's formal report makes him out to be almost superhuman."

Kha blushed furiously.

"Right, so if that's settled and there are no questions or quibbles?" Leleth paused for a moment, but no sound of protest emerged. "Alright then. As EF-1 contains a high proportion of combatant staff, and as our role will include primary first contact and diplomacy, we will _not_ now have a regular escort unit. That means that it will be up to us to defend ourselves and each other.

"We leave for an SGC training and orientation facility in two weeks and our first live mission is in three," she continued. "At the SGC facility we will face a series of challenges set by the personnel of Stargate Command with the objective of making us look and feel like a bunch of idiots with no right to wander the universe. By the time we depart, therefore, we will have spent a full week training in basic squad tactics. Prior to that, Dr Kha will undergo basic pistol and rifle training, basic hand-to-hand, basic squad coordination and combat triage."

Kha's face grew pale.

"Sakiko will check out for basic pistol and hand-to-hand, although I anticipate that being a formality. She will proceed to basic squad, rifle and advanced hand-to-hand training. Adjutant Badon will take a two day refresher to return him to combat readiness before continuing to advanced marksmanship, hand-to-hand and squad training.

"Understand that I am going to push you hard," Leleth finished. "I will push you harder than you have ever been pushed and that includes you, Miss 'I got my doctorate before I finished growing'. Now we are going to see the Director so that I can introduce him to my team. If anyone feels I've set them an unattainable goal for one week of training, they should leave right now."

No-one moved.

"Alright EF-1; let's move out."

**Author's Note:**

> So, I worked out a lot of background on this...
> 
> http://www.prophet.phlegethon.org/Fiction/SEG/frame-index.htm
> 
> Sadly, this ended up the only completed story in the SEG series.


End file.
